A new report has revealed Ireland’s market-leading data centre offering, highlighting a unique mix of third party enterprise facilities and huge investment from hyperscale web giants.
The Data Centres Ireland research, conducted by BroadGroup, places Ireland as a leading data centre market – attracting international interest due to its status within the European Union and its low corporate tax framework.
The report notes that the country has benefited from investment from a wide range of industries including gaming companies, pharmaceuticals, and media firms – which are increasingly choosing to locate their European headquarters in the region.
Government support of investment from webscale tech companies, such as AWS and Microsoft, has also led to a boom in the construction of large data centre facilities around the country’s capital of Dublin.
BroadGroup also noted that Irish authorities are continuing to identify land for new build opportunities.
In addition, Ireland has been a strong advocate of renewable energies, particularly wind energy. The government is aiming to reach a share of 40% renewables, far surpassing the EU mandatory benchmark of 16%.
The country is also supported by a range of international cable capacity options and will offer the first direct submarine cable system to connect to France (bypassing the UK) from Q3 2019.
BroadGroup added that Ireland has installed a high-level foundation of fibre and dark fibre, with plans to deploy further in the future.
The report found that should all current plans for third party expansions be realised, a total investment of €740 million will be reached by the end of 2020.
The research concludes that while the Irish data centre market is seventh largest in Europe in terms of third party metres squared space, the presence of the tech giants makes a strong case for Dublin to be named a Tier 1 hub alongside London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
