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Get a 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/request-a-demo?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– In this episode of our series “Big Topics”, we are discussing data center investing with Josh Pang, Head of Digital Infrastructure for Carlyle Infrastructure Group. Carlyle is a global investment firm with over $300B of assets under management and Josh has over 15 years experience in infrastructure investment.  In this conversation, we cover several unique variables in data center investment. Current Data Center Investing Environment Valuations multiples remain high across the data center sector. The pace has accelerated as investors gain confidence in the long term trend supporting data center growth and demand. With record high valuations, investors are utilizing a buy-and-build” strategy for speed to market. Secondary EU and APAC markets are garnering more demand as well. Edge Computing is starting to show profitable and sustainable use cases due to densification of networks, lower latency deployments, and proliferation of fiber capacity. Sustainability and Power Constraints Demand for green data centers is growing. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is becoming a focus across the industry. Carlyle prioritizes their focus on green energy and has partnered Birch Infrastructure for green data center solutions. Many approaches are being utilized to manage power more effectively to reduce consumption in light of emerging constraints. Increased demand is expected in spite of various challenges in the industry.  Please share and like this video if you found this information helpful and be sure to stay tuned for our next episode!

Senior Vice President of Advisory & Transaction Services at CBRE, Brant Bernet discusses the history, current key components, and future trends in data center site selection. In the first episode of our series “Big Topics”, David is discussing data center site selection with an expert on this topic, Senior Vice President of Advisory & Transaction Services at CBRE, Brant Bernet. With decades of experience in data center real estate, Brant walks through the history of site selection, key considerations in site selection, and the future of data center site selection. History of Data Center Real Estate Innovation has improved the experience of site section in the data center real estate market. In earlier years of the industry, brokers would fly to proposed locations with a “toolbox” stocked with multiple items that are now all replaced by a smartphone. Tools such as Google Earth and Fiber Locator have reduced the need for physical tours and simplified connectivity research.  Key Components of Data Center Site Selection Colocation providers, hyperscale users, and crypto miners are driving data center real estate market development. The need for large land parcels and a pathway for the largest power requirements in industry history are creating challenges in site selection. Land parcels of this size can only be found in certain areas and are decreasing in volume which is pushing demand to secondary markets. Due to rising land costs in response to the pandemic and increasing power demand, clients have a desire to move quickly in site selection. To do so, clients are utilizing land banking and are seeking powered shells or sites to scale rapidly. Users are also less opposed to traditional risks when factors such as connectivity, location, and availability are in their favor. Future Data Center Site Selection Trends As costs go down, opportunities for renewable energy will be attractive to clients in the future. Improvements in construction and volume of demand will lead to the selection of sites previously not preferred. Tertiary markets will continue to take on the burden of growth in response to the unwavering demand.  Please share and like this this video if you found this information helpful and be sure to stay tuned for our next episode on data center construction!

What is a Hyperscale Data Center? With the different types of data centers, here’s how we can clarify exactly what we’re talking about: A data center is a building that houses an organization's servers and IT equipment. There are private or enterprise data centers that specifically serve as a resource for the businesses that own them, as well as multi-tenant or colocation data centers that serve the public. When people refer to “hyperscale data centers,” they’re most often referring to the customers who own or lease a given data center, as well as the size. Companies who use hyperscale data centers will either build/lease 20+ MW at a time or will gradually expand to that number over time in 1-3 MW chunks. So a hyperscale data center is one that either is built by a hyperscale company itself, or one that’s designed to meet that company’s needs. Hyperscale Data Centers: The Where, How, and What’s Next Capturing tomorrow's opportunity starts with a clear understanding of where the largest data center users are today, and this landscape is continually changing. In Q1 of 2022, the data center industry is coming off the most active quarter it’s ever had. Whether or not that trend will continue starts with looking at where hyperscale data centers are located today and how they’re poised for growth tomorrow. Roughly 40% of hyperscale data centers are in the United States — specifically, Northern Virginia, Northern California, Phoenix, Dallas, and Chicago — where hyperscale development and leasing continues to boom. Right behind the US, China currently hosts 10% of the world’s hyperscale sites, followed closely by Japan, Germany, the UK, Australia, Canada, India, and Singapore. When looking at companies that are continuing to grow their hyperscale data center presence, Amazon Web Services primarily builds in Northern Virginia (1747MW, 238 Leased), Microsoft primarily leases (26MW built, 235 leased), and Facebook primarily leases in Northern Virginia (242MW, 0 built), but has built in Dallas (150MW), Oregon (226MW), and Des Moines (171MW). Hyperscale Data Centers: How They’re Impacting the Data Center World When it comes to leasing wholesale and build-to-suit data center space, hyperscale companies are controlling the demand, making them the primary customer who decides how data centers develop worldwide. In order for colocation providers to capture some of this demand, they need to have a strategy for how to approach land acquisition, development, and a sustainable path to growth. Developers are already pursuing “land banking” strategies where they acquire land for future projects in markets that currently lack development sites. As developers work to buy land where a decrease in premium sites has led to an increase in price, places like Northern Virginia and Phoenix are experiencing accelerated growth. While the cost of the lease and the cost of power are both factors, hyperscale companies are emphasizing scalability in terms of what future growth could look like. Instead of only asking how much this capacity will cost today, hyperscale developers must also think about how much it will cost to increase the power usage in the future. The Future of Hyperscale Data Centers In addition to the steady growth in traditional markets that’s showing no signs of slowing down, hyperscale data centers are starting to pop up in small markets. Google has now built 277MW in Omaha, Amazon has 204MW in Columbus, and Facebook has 156MW in Albuquerque. While building increases in these smaller markets, leasing demand continues to surge in the traditional markets with companies like Apple and Oracle leasing in places like Northern Virginia and Chicago. For anyone hoping to keep an eye on this growth as well as what it means for the future of hyperscale data centers, we’ve created a tool dedicated to helping you understand and construct your own hyperscale strategy. Click the link at the top of this post to receive a demo of our tool.

Want to see how datacenterHawk can help you make better decisions? Get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– 0:00 - Intro & PTC Recap 3:24 - Hyperscale Demand in North America 10:27 - Growth in Secondary European Markets 15:20 - Planned Power Growth in Sydney ––––– We produced our 4Q 2021 podcast, going over the data center trends in North American, European, & APAC markets, on LinkedIn Live. This is the recorded version of the podcast. Comment below if you have any additional questions you would like us to address.

Want to see how datacenterHawk can help you make decisions around data centers? Get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo NVIDIA’s Director of Solutions Architecture, Director of Engineering, share their insight on the growth of AI and its impact on edge computing. In this interview with NVIDIA, Rama Darbha, Director of Solutions Architecture, and Roopa Prabhu, Director of Engineering, share their insights on the industries driving edge computing, the impact of AI on the data center industry, and future AI innovations affect on the footprint of the data center industry. Edge computing, AI, & data centers Edge computing and storing capabilities are utilized by several industries in different capacities and artificial intelligence (AI) is a major driver of this need. Manufacturers use edge computing to deploy real-time decision making AI in autonomous cars. Retail providers use edge computing in robotics with many applications from warehouse management to theft prevention. Providers utilize edge storing capabilities to host geographically decentralized regions, to name a few examples of edge users. Highlights from NVIDIA’s GTC conference Rama and Roopa discuss the many AI innovations emerging that were addressed during NVIDIA’s annual GTC conference. AI and other similar data heavy technologies are increasing demand in the data center industry calling for the infrastructure to respond quickly to this evolution. With technological improvements, data centers are poised to accommodate more data and take on new opportunities in edge computing and AI. NVIDIA aims to partner with companies to provide various solutions through AI enabled systems.

Interested in Hyperscale data centers? Sign up for our free hyperscale data center course: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/hyperscale-business-development-fundamentals Or get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– As CEO, Mike Sicoli led INAP through financial restructuring in the middle of the Covid pandemic, all while continuing to focus on the importance of offering a wide array of services in this increasingly hybrid world. Being able to offer a suite of different connectivity and hosting options is important in today’s market and Mike believes we’re still on the front end of businesses transitioning to hybrid. So many companies still have most of their operations on premises, from an enterprise standpoint. For them, the potential of public and private Cloud is just starting to open. For various reasons, particularly cost and the speed that a private Cloud edge networking setup can offer, a large chunk of data and operations will never see the public Cloud. Hybrid is here to stay. So, the trick is helping clients navigate this complex set of options, and making it work well without jumping through too many hoops. Clients can feel more secure about their future when they deal with a company that has a lot of diversified services and assets. No matter where their journey takes them, a company like INAP will be able to help them out. No Cloud hosting decision is binary, or fixed, or irrecoverable. Flexibility in infrastructure design is more critical than ever. Mike believes that the hardest job in the corporate world falls on the shoulders of the CIO, or the person in charge of the IT infrastructure. Some of the decisions they make can take months or years to play out. So, when they need to be more agile and flexible, moving their spend around, it’s important to work with them rather than stubbornly forcing them to stick to an architecture that might no longer be valid. So, the two programs that they offer are service portability and a performance guarantee. It means that if the customer doesn’t feel like INAP is performing up to their standards, they can leave without penalty. Some of the big, specialist infrastructure providers play a ‘gotcha’ game with clients, locking then into a three-year, five-year, or even longer contract with no flexibility. To keep a client happy in the long term, it’s much better to offer flexible terms, rather than muscle them with business or legal threats. That leads to more business referrals and better word of mouth. Mike admits that the geographic portability clause can be a little nerve wracking, particularly when cost structure varies from territory to territory. But it’s important to make that work to keep clients happy. He wants them to be excited when they talk about INAP, seeing them as part of the solution and not part of the problem. Mike’s Take on Industry Challenges and Exciting Trends One of the biggest challenges right now is making the hybrid experience as easy to consume as possible. There needs to be more automation, more options for self-service. Clients want services that work seamlessly across all platforms, no matter where they’re being hosted. INAP’s entire near future roadmap is centered around enhancing automation and self-service, that’s how important ease of use has become. Edge networking is the other big challenge. 5G and IoT might be drivers towards this trend, but there will be so many applications for it soon. And though public Cloud will play a role, security and performance factors will necessitate that a lot of that activity takes place on private Cloud infrastructure.

Interested in Hyperscale data centers? Sign up for our free hyperscale data center course: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/hyperscale-business-development-fundamentals Or get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– 0:00 - Intro 0:56 - 2021 2:15 - 2021 Demand 5:09 - 2021 M&A Activity 8:12 - 2021 Future Supply 11:10 - 2022 Market Size 13:12 - 2022 Absorption 15:00 - 2022 Vacancy 16:23 - 2022 Pricing 22:04 - Q&A ––––– Join us as we look back at the main trends in the data center industry that took place in 2021. We'll also look ahead to 2022 and let you know our thoughts on what the data center industry will look like as we get ready to jump into the new year.

We recently got the chance to sit down once again with Peter Jones, Chief Development Officer and founder at Yondr, and get his thoughts on the European data center industry. A Little Bit About Yondr and Pete For those unfamiliar, Yondr is a privately owned network provisioning company that offers modular data center designs: MicroBloc, MetroBloc, and HyperBloc. On one end of the spectrum is hyperscale, in the 10s to 100s of megawatts range. On the other end of the spectrum, tailored small scale deployments that help people enter new markets. Sometimes the small scale deployments are in places that have no colocation presence whatsoever. Yondr’s presence spans over three continents, employing over 300 people and still hiring as quickly as possible. Peter started off as an electrical engineer on the design side, before transitioning into delivery management for Digital Realty during their big EU expansion from 2009 to 2011. From 2011 to 2018 he was part of Google’s global infrastructure team, taking a year off in the middle to skipper a sailing yacht from the UK to New Zealand. In 4Q of 2018, he started Yondr with Dave Newitt and Miles Redding. They predicted an unprecedented level of network growth by the turn of the decade… but had no idea how much the pandemic would accelerate that need at a global level. 2021 has been a transformational year, with Yondr’s headcount constantly on the rise, and client demands ramping up in both frequency and scope. The EU Data Center Services Scene We asked about some of the real time trends in the EU, having seen the vacancy rates in Europe’s major data centers drop from 11.4% down to 7.5% over the last eight quarters. Peter noted that the drawdown in capacity was fated even before news of the pandemic started to spread. Additional capacity slowed down during the pandemic of course, and now there are either active or planned moratoriums on new builds in some of the five major markets. So, it’s not surprising that those numbers are coming down. In the broader market, there’s been an influx of new money, and thus new startups. But with no real pedigree amongst the new companies and a limited number of good locations to invest the available money, caution is at an all time high. Everyone knows that the need for bandwidth is there, but the trend in the late 2010s of failing projects and under deliveries is a specter that hangs over the industry. This is a temporary phenomenon in the EU. Eventually, the market will churn out winners and losers in the new industry startups, and those who execute successfully will be trusted with bigger investments and larger scale projects. There’s an amazing level of persistence right now; an obsession that causes companies to stick with the big five regions and absorb every possible watt of power and cubic centimeter of space rather than expand into nearby suburbs. The level of tolerance for long lead times and high prices in these areas is at an absurd high. Sure, there are massive day one costs to break ground in a new place. But with prices skyrocketing in these major networking metros, something has to give eventually. Clients in the EU are looking for big tranches (of both power and bandwidth) right now, either to consolidate their fragmented network hosting portfolio or to avoid fragmentation in the future. This is where some clients are tempted to push outward, away from the overpopulated metro areas… as long as they’re presented with a growth story they can really believe in.

Interested in Hyperscale data centers? Sign up for our free hyperscale data center course: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/hyperscale-business-development-fundamentals Or get a quick 15 minute demo of our platform: https://lp.datacenterhawk.com/overview?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=demo ––––– The top four hyperscale data center users have expanded their own footprint by an average of 26% per year. But will that growth continue? We think the answer is yes. Read back through our series on hyperscale data centers and you’ll notice the consistent reappearance of one word in particular: growth. With the creation of over 200 new hyperscale data centers between 2017-2020, the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific regions are experiencing a boom in hyperscale services. But what about the future? Will the location strategy change over time, or can all parties and places expect continued expansion? And lastly, will the sustainability topic ever be fully answered? We sat down to look at the stats and see just what the future of hyperscale data centers may have in store. How will hyperscale users continue to grow into the future? Over the last five years, the top four hyperscale data center users have grown by an average of 26% per year. For this type of expansion to continue, a few things need to happen. First, growth appears tied to the continual adoption of public cloud. Surveying the industry as a whole, it doesn’t seem like that growth has any plans to slow down. Hyperscale data centers continue to master the public cloud and cloud services industries as they also expand their business into other related verticals. Second, there will continue to be tradeoffs in the hyperscalers who own vs. those who lease. Companies are leasing more as a percentage of their total, but it’s unclear if that balance will continue. The demand across hyperscale data centers is too great for only one of these options to grow. Hyperscale users are consistently growing at a speed that requires flexibility across centers, whether they own them or lease them. Combine that with the fact that those doing the leasing from the data center operator perspective have gotten a lot better. Their facilities, their design, and their PUE, are capable of fitting the user footprint much better than they could five or ten years ago. So, while the percentage of owned vs. leased hyperscale data centers may change, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see groups commit to one type of growth pattern ever again. How will hyperscale location strategy change over time? Looking at how the top four companies are utilizing hyperscale data centers across different cities, a few locations quickly rise to the top. • Northern Virginia: 3,700 MW • Des Moines: 591 MW • Omaha: 400 MW • Columbus: 392 MW • Phoenix, Atlanta, and Dallas: 310-360 MW • Prineville, Kennewick: 275-285 MW While several places on this list are in what could be considered ​​non-traditional colocation markets, they’ve long had a large footprint compared to other cities that are closer to end users. Places like Northern Virginia and Des Moines were cities who knew the impact that building hyperscale data centers would have on their overall economic growth. Now, others are starting to catch wind of what those places have long known. For the future of hyperscale data centers, demand will be pushed more towards major colocation markets for several reasons. One, the cost of delivering to end users located far away is high. We will continue to see a trend of hyperscale data centers moving toward the people they serve. Combine that with the economic incentives being provided for new sites and it’s likely that the trend of additional growth in more traditional (at least from a multi-tenant perspective) data center markets will continue.

Kirk's background is in the U.S. military, serving as an electronics technician aboard the USS Memphis until the turn of the century. After getting out of the Navy, he started looking for career paths to plug himself into. He worked as a field service engineer while simultaneously getting his Bachelor of Business Management degree. Because the role involved traveling from site to site, he got to witness the building of multiple data centers and tech businesses in the early 2000s. After graduation, he became the Southwest Regional Project Manager at EATON. Towards the end of his tenure there, he was diagnosed with cancer. As he was battling against the disease, he vowed to strive for something much bigger than his management role. With whatever time he had left, he wanted to master the skills that would put him on top of the industry. He skipped around for the next few years, learning what he could from each company or contract as he went: EDSA Micro, HP, Modular Power Solutions, CyrusOne, NOVA Mission Critical, and Aligned Energy. He had opportunities to work with some of the best companies in the industry. He was also fortunate enough to remain healthy in the process of gaining this experience. When Kirk had learned everything he could, all the while making some excellent industry contacts and lifelong friends, he was ready for the next step. In 2015, he became the Co-Founder of Data Center Austin Conference (DCAC). From there he didn't look back. Later he expanded his grasp, becoming the CEO of OVERWATCH Mission Critical, which recently celebrated its second anniversary. Around half the staff is ex-military, driven and mission oriented. Sometimes their skill sets didn't apply directly to the industry, but their tenacity allowed these recruits to adapt to their new, fast paced industry even though it has such a high learning curve. One of their first clients, Compass Datacenters, helped them to set up the diversity and apprenticeship programs that shaped OVERWATCH's culture. Why Does Ex-Military Apprenticeship Matter? The common thread that runs through the soul of every ex-military person is drive. They spent years with concrete routines and long work hours, sometimes upwards of 100 hours a week even outside of combat environments. Transitioning to civilian life can leave these veterans without direction. There’s a mental health crisis for a lot of veterans, with military suicides being four times more common than combat fatalities worldwide. Civilian life is simply a different universe. Direction and purpose are the keys to bridging these two lifestyles successfully. Whether these veterans have experienced trauma during their service, or whether they’re just experiencing a massive culture shock that leaves them questioning their purpose and identity, a disciplined framework needs to go hand in hand with an understanding environment. This is why ex-military apprenticeship is so critical. It provides an all-important lifeline that will help them to achieve reintegration more successfully.