Driving Factors of Ireland’s Data Centre Growth

Over the last decade, Ireland has quickly come to be a data centre and cloud computing hub for global technology organisations, providing a safe and compliant environment for data storage.

What is pushing Ireland’s data centre growth?

Major providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google have already started collocating core platforms across the country, with Dublin hosting several major tech EMEA headquarters, shorting data within close proximity to original deployment locations makes sense. With so many of these different sized and industry ranging organisations are putting their data in the country and the number of data centres across the region has rapidly increased.

In the last twelve months alone, 10 new data centres have been established, with investments in these facilities above €7 billion between 2010 to 2020. There are roughly 70 operational data centres in Dublin alone, with eight more under construction and more in planning stages.

Naturally, the pandemic has fueled this growth with a push for remote working and virtual workplace and recognition of the benefits of storing their company data and apps within the cloud security. Ireland is benefitting from this but what else is attracting businesses to store their data in the country?

As technology advances and new regulation laws are introduced, politics is having an increasing impact on our approach to data and where it should be stored. With attention given to one of the biggest British geopolitical stories of a generation, and the uncertainty it has often created, Ireland has become the chosen spot for many big companies looking for a free flow of data in and out of the EU, Dublin proves to be more secure within Europe.

Ireland is also on its way to a sustainable clean energy future which is important to today’s companies,  Irish targets to achieve net-zero carbon within the next 30 years works in tandem with consumer and company demands. With the environment being a factor, many data centres have been overhauled to ensure data centre capacity purchases are done in a sustainable and ethical long-term way.

Because of this growth of data volumes and broadband penetration driving digital services housed in Ireland, existing tech infrastructure has been stretched massively. 54 new data centres have been built since Amazon invested €1 billion in Ireland in 2004.

This resulted in Ireland now being the fastest-growing data centre market in Europe, with more than €1 billion worth of projects planned. The pandemic has pushed for this, to detach from physical data storage to cloud alternatives, this infrastructure has been tested but the move to securing data centres puts strain on pre-existing infrastructures.

With companies moving towards Ireland this existing infrastructure has to be revamped and updated to take the load. while also being decarbonised. Research from EirGrid shows by 2027, data centres could account for 29% of Ireland’s total energy demand.

Finding a way to do this sustainably and safely without contributing to pollution will be the balance needed to hit. There will be a significant need to grow the IT infrastructure serving data centres, but there will be a greater need to ensure this is done in a way that is sustainable.

This data centre growth has come with an increased number of jobs created for the Irish population, Ireland has one of the youngest and most diverse workforces in Europe. This coupled with the clustering of technology companies and data centres has provided a critical mass of talent and skill to satisfy current demand.

This demand will continue to grow in the future as cloud tech is more important for companies, stats show the number of pupils choosing IT subjects at exam level are decreasing, organisations and third parties need to ensure there is not a gap in skills with this demand growing.