Hyperscale Data Center Count Approaches the 400 Mark; US Still Dominates

RENO, NV, December 20, 2017

New data from Synergy Research Group shows that the number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers is rapidly approaching the 400 mark. The year-end total will be over 390, after Q4 data center openings in China, India and Malaysia. The mid-year period saw a flurry of openings in Germany, the UK, Singapore, Australia, Brazil and the US, with Google being particularly active. One notable feature of the global footprint is that despite a major ongoing push to locate new operations in countries around the world, the US still accounts for 44% of major cloud and internet data center sites. The next most prominent locations are China, Japan and the UK, which collectively account for another 20% of the total. The four leading countries are then followed by Australia, Germany, Singapore, Canada, India and Brazil, each of which accounts for 3-5% of the total. The research is based on an analysis of the data center footprint of 24 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including the largest operators in SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, search, social networking and e-commerce. On average each of the 24 firms had 16 data center sites. The companies with the broadest data center footprint are the leading cloud providers – Amazon/AWS, Microsoft, IBM and Google. Each has 45 or more data center locations with at least three in each of the four regions – North America, APAC, EMEA and Latin America. Oracle and Alibaba also have a notably broad data center presence. The remaining firms tend to have their data centers focused primarily in either the US (Apple, Twitter, Facebook, eBay, LinkedIn, Yahoo) or China (Tencent, Baidu).

“Hyperscale growth goes on unabated and we already have visibility of at least 69 more hyperscale data centers that are at various stages of planning or building. We will pass the 500 milestone before the end of 2019,” said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst and Research Director at Synergy Research Group. “It is remarkable that the US still accounts for almost half of all hyperscale data centers, reflecting the US dominance of cloud and internet technologies. Other countries are now featuring more prominently in terms of data center build, but even three years from now we forecast that the US will still account for some 40% of the worldwide total.”