Data centre investment in S'pore hits US$1.9b this year: report

DATA centre investment in Singapore reached US$1.93 billion this year, representing a rise of 5.3 per cent over 2012, according to the Asia Pacific Key Trends report by DCD Intelligence, part of DatacenterDynamics that provides research and analysis on the global data centre industry. The report is based on a survey of more than 5,000 data centre professionals.

Slightly over half of the investment was made in facility equipment and solutions, while the rest was split almost evenly between IT optimisation and outsourcing. However, the latter two saw a higher rate of increase in investment this year at 6.9 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively, compared to facility investment which grew only 3.6 per cent over the previous year.

The report also estimated total data centre "white space" (which refers to usable space in the DCs) in Singapore to be at 687,150 square metres this year. This is about the land size of 12 Tampines Town Hubs. About 12,250 people work in and around data centres here.