This year the boom is back

from The Business Times Singapore:

>>Equinix to expand data centres in Asia

Nasdaq-listed Equinix will also use the funds - procured as loan from various banks, including DBS Bank - to expand in Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo, apart from Singapore, Equinix's Hong Kong-based Asia-Pacific president, Samuel Lee, told BizIT in an interview.

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'We continued to experience strong growth within the Asia-Pacific region even during the global recession in 2009, and more so this year,' Mr Lee says. 'In fact, last year we opened a second DC in both Singapore and Sydney, and expanded our Hong Kong DC as well. This year the boom is back and we should see a strong surge in enterprise data. Much of that data would need to sit in DCs.'

In 2008, Singapore had a total of about 170,000 sq m of DC capacity, up 15 per cent over 2007. Not much capacity was added in 2009 due to the recession in 2008. But in 2010, demand may outstrip supply by up to 20 per cent, according to industry sources. Apart from Equinix, there are a slew of DC players such as SingTel, NCS, Tata Communications, ST Engineering and Fujitsu Asia.

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According to industry analysts, the demand for DC space significantly outpaces supply in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan (APJ) region, with 50 per cent of the demand being driven by government initiatives, and the rest by Internet media, telecom and IT companies.

'Demand for DC hosting currently exceeds supply,' research house Frost & Sullivan's analyst Wu Chengyu says. 'In fact, over 80 per cent of the major DCs in the Asia-Pacific are running at close to 90 per cent capacity, and space is at a premium.'

In 2009, the market for DC services in the APJ region was about US$8 billion. That's set to cross US$10.6 billion by 2011.