By: Staff Writer
August 5, 2022
A regional Cloud Services provider calls the growth in the Caribbean data centre markert unsurprising and because the market has converged over time, these centres will become small and smaller.
Scott MacKenzie, Cloud Carib’s chief executive, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that from a “data centre perspective,” it will become “more dense” as the years go on and the market now compared to 2000 where one would have needed to build a 10,000 square feet data centre but in today’s market a data centre of that size is “not needed.”
Mr MacKenzie was responding to a report from Arizton that estimates the Caribbean data center market investment will cross $120m growing at a CAGR of 11 percent during 2022-2027.
Individual governments are focusing on increasing digitalization and setting up robust digital infrastructure to drive investments in data centres in the Caribbean region. Investments in the Caribbean region by telecom operators and colocation operators will lead to an increase in the land under development, Arizton’s report also said.
But Mr MacKenzie is not shocked at the mere $120m growth and reckons that it may be too liberal an estimate over the next five years. “So as an example, an entire data centre of 10,000 square feet in the year 2000, would be like one megawatt worth of power into that into that raised floor space for 10,000 square feet.
Continuing he added: “Google today is doing 750 KVA to one megawatt in a single rack footprint. So the density ratio is dramatically changed, right? So what you needed before 10,000 square feet, you can literally get in two racks.”
The technology is “exponentially shrinking,” and the Caribbean market does not require more data centres, Mr MacKenzie asserted. “It requires greater internet connectivity to drive down the price of the internet, drive down the price of power for consumers. That’s really what’s required. There’s enough capacity from a data centre perspective.
He added: “Some of the data centres in the region definitely could be improved and invested in but from what’s available for 44m people, which is the population of the Caribbean, I don’t really see a huge growth in the data centre space.”
The Arizton report also advocated for, “Adoption of cloud computing and advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and government support are driving the data center market in the Caribbean.
It also said, “In the Caribbean data center market, the Bahamas, Panama, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands are some countries witnessing data center investments, primarily owing to various national development schemes. For instance, the Bahamas government has announced the National Development Plan Vision 2040 to attract investments in the country in the coming 25 years.
“Major colocation providers are entering the Caribbean market. For instance, in August 2021, Telecom Italia Sparkle launched a new data center facility to improve connectivity in the Caribbean region. The facility hosts around 600 rack cabinets.
Arizton has also seen cloud service providers partner with local companies to provide cloud services in the region. For instance, in April 2021, Millicom (Tigo) partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide AWS cloud-based services through its multi-Cloud managed services in Panama.
Mr MacKenzie admitted, however: “There is going to be some growth because some countries don’t have any data centre whatsoever. But one of the things the region needs to step it up in is international certifications of facilities.” Right now only three jurisdictions can pass international data centre qualifications and standards and that is Trinidad, The Dominican Republic and Panama.