Hong Kong Rejoins Global Top Ten Data Center Markets, Ranked Second in Asia Pacific

• Hong
  Kong is in sixth position in 2022 data center global rankings
• Shanghai
  retains fourth-placed ranking for total market size

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 24
January 2022 – Asia Pacific’s data center market continues to grow at a
relentless pace and is set to become the world’s largest data center region
over the next decade. According to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest 2022 Data
Center Global Market Comparison report, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney are
ranked among the top 10 data center markets in the world.

Construction totals continue to grow
globally, with 4.1 gigawatts (GW) currently underway in the markets covered, up
from 2.9 GW in the previous study and 1.6 GW in the year before that. The
largest clients continue to require larger builds, with 100 megawatt campuses
becoming increasingly common.

Ranked outside the overall top 10 markets last
year, Hong Kong makes a big jump in 2022, coming in at sixth place globally and
second in Asia-Pacific. John Siu, Managing Director, Hong Kong at Cushman
& Wakefield said: “Hong Kong offers a robust development pipeline,
excellent networks and all major cloud services are available. The city also
retains its crown as the globally lowest taxed data center jurisdiction. As a
global financial and business capital, with a long history of pro-business
policies it accordingly offers a robust data center sector.”

Mr. Siu added,
“Strong demand from data center investors and operators have triggered high
volume of transactions in 2021. For example, Mapletree acquired an industrial
site via a government tender for a ground-up data center development, totaling
circa 217,000 sf; ESR bought an industrial building (circa 294,000 sf) for a
wholesale data center conversion; whereas GDS also purchased an industrial
building for a data center redevelopment (circa 277,000 sf). In the next 5-year
horizon, the city’s total new supply will amount to 5.5 million sf. That said,
the supply pipeline in the medium to long term will be constrained by shortage
of land and power supply in the popular data center submarkets, such as Tsuen
Wan and Kwai Chung. To support the city’s development as a world-class data
center market, it is therefore crucial for the government and power suppliers
to break the bottleneck and increase land supply and power capacity into these submarkets.”

Shanghai retains its position as the
world’s fourth largest data center market by total market size, with market
capability of more than 0.6 gigawatts surpassed only by Northern Virginia,
London and Tokyo. Beijing was ranked 13th for the same indicator.

Further growth in Asia Pacific is expected
throughout at least the next five to 10 years, as the region requires entirely
new builds due to a lack of existing infrastructure for retrofit. Globally,
regions across Latin America and Africa are also expected to enjoy considerable
growth in coming years, as new undersea cables are bringing faster access to
many markets for the first time. Secondary markets across the world continue to
grow, with many soon to reach current primary market size.

Source: Cushman &
Wakefield

“The horizon for the data center industry
across the Asia Pacific region is exceptionally bright, thanks to deep
hyperscale demand and the billions of dollars in development in progress to
support these key tenants,” said Kevin Imboden, Cushman & Wakefield’s
Director of Research for the Data Center Advisory Group. “The 1.3 gigawatts
under construction in the APAC markets reviewed is a small fraction of what is
in planning regionally, with much action and growth coming over the next
decade.”