A new report – Data Centres Ireland by BroadGroup – published this week has revealed that Ireland’s distinctive data centre market now leads the way in Europe.
The report suggests that Ireland has benefited from its low corporate tax environment in attracting investment by both webscales and enterprises from the gaming, pharmaceuticals and content sectors.
The report also noted that many of the latter have chosen Ireland as a base for their European headquarters and it is also sustaining further expansion by third party data centres.
Government support for inward investment by hyperscales from the likes of Amazon and Microsoft has resulted in the construction of massive facilities around Dublin.
Even now authorities such as the IDA are working to identify potential land banks for new large scale data centre facilities in across Ireland, which indicates that the supply of more space will continue to enter the market.
The big part of Ireland’s attraction is its status in the EU and low tax rates, with data centre investment across a range of business models and has become the main hub for webscales regionally.
It has also fostered the development of renewable energy – primarily wind energy – and is targeting 40% by 2020 well beyond the EU mandatory benchmark of 16%.
Connectivity is supported by a range of international cable capacity, with the first direct submarine cable system from Ireland to France (bypassing the UK) due to be launched from Q3 2019.
The country also has a high installed base of fibre and dark fibre with further deployment planned.
Although currently the seventh largest market by third party m2 space in Europe, the presence of webscales mainly in the Dublin area, the report suggests, makes a substantial argument for the city to be re-classified as a Tier 1 hub alongside London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Research for the report found that should all current plans for third-party expansion come to pass, a total investment of €740m will be made by the end of 2020.
The report provides forecasts for both m2 and MW across both third party data centres, and webscales present in the country through to 2020.
BroadGroup who are an Information Media Technology and Professional Services provider, will be hosting the first Datacloud Ireland conference at the Dublin Convention Centre on September 21st which includes a special workshop covering GDPR, enterprise meetings, and data centre tours.
