Warsaw as one of the tycoons among emerging locations for data centres in Europe

Ten post dostępny jest także w języku: polski

Cushman & Wakefield, in its report on Data Centres, has identified Warsaw as one of the nine most popular data centre entry locations in Europe. In addition to Poland’s capital city, the cities of Berlin, Reykjavik, Oslo, Zurich, Milan, Vienna, Madrid and Prague are also among the most popular.

New needs in the DC market

The Covid-19 crisis and the associated need to switch to remote working have increased demand for data center services, both globally and in Europe itself. The demand for high speed fiber optic connections in a pandemic, rising land prices, limited energy availability and limited supply (temporary suspension of DC facilities) have weakened the so-called FLAP-D markets, which have long dominated the European data center market. The FLAP-D markets include locations such as: Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin. At the same time, taking into account the above factors, demand is increasing and opportunities in secondary markets. This requires companies providing their services based on data centres to be closer to regional customers/users. Cushman & Wakefield’s report includes emerging data centre locations: Warsaw, Berlin, Reykjavik, Oslo, Zurich, Milan, Vienna, Madrid and Prague.

Opportunity for new markets

Cushman & Wakefield says the nine cities mentioned above will increase their role in the European data centre market over the next few years (5-10 years). Reykjavik (212 MW), Berlin (199 MW), Warsaw (128 MW), Oslo (125 MW) and Zurich (117 MW) are likely to become the largest secondary data centre markets in Europe. According to the forecasts presented in the report, Berlin (342%), Reykjavik (308%) and Oslo (150%) will see the largest increases in capacity. During this time Warsaw will double its current capacity from 64 MW to 128 MW.

The growing interest in the Warsaw data center market is driven by investments of global companies such as Google and Microsoft. In May 2020, Microsoft announced a $ 1bn cloud investment in Poland’s capital city, and a few months later, Google announced plans to allocate $ 2bn for the development of the cloud region in the Polish market. In addition to investments of global brands, the data center market in Poland will also be expanded with investments of local market leaders such as ATM, Equinix, Netia, T-Mobile Polska and Beyond.pl.

Source: Cushman & Wakefield, 2020