Covid-19 spurs growth of data center sector in Poland

by   CIJ News iDesk II
2020-10-14   10:34
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Data centers are becoming an important segment of commercial real estate, and the Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be an impulse for its accelerated growth. There are currently 115 data centers in Poland, of which the highest number is located in Warsaw (35), Katowice and Krakow (13 each), according to Axi Immo. The market will develop further, especially following the decision by IT giants Google and Microsoft to add Warsaw to their list of global cloud regions, with pledged investment of $2bn and $1bn respectively over the coming years. Data centers as a sector of real estate are different from traditional segments of the market. A number of factors that are of limited importance for retail, offices or logistics are crucial when selecting a site for a data center. This includes access to the power supply, cost of power, connection to the fiber optic network and proximity to large Internet exchange points, according Axi Immo. “A typical dry storage warehouse requires around 50kW of power per 1,000 sqm, while a data center of the same size, with average quality infrastructure and average server density requires around 2MW, which is 40 times more. A data center has to be continuously operational. For this reason, it needs to be bullet-proofed against power outages, overvoltage and internet outage,” said Janusz Gutowski, CEO of Axi Immo. “This requires more than one source of energy and more than one source of fiber Internet. It is also key for a data center to have a separate infrastructure for each Internet provider, in case of a network failure in one of them.”