Earnings, hyperscale, acceleration, GPUs, M&A, CapEx, expansions, global markets
It was another busy week across the sector. Earnings season kicked off and the hyperscale platforms were first to report. Meanwhile, there was activity around power alternatives in Dublin and we saw more data centre expansion activity in some strategic markets. Finally, in our monthly insights, we look at the state of enterprise migrations to cloud and outsourced infrastructure, GPU cloud momentum and M&A transactions.
The beginning of earnings season saw AWS, Microsoft, Google and Meta report and there were some consistent themes. Hyperscale cloud growth rates are starting to rebound and the wave of deceleration seen over the last few years has receded. The drivers behind this growth are multi-faceted, but emerging AI demand is a big part of the story and it is also having an impact on CapEx. CapEx is trending upwards and this is a strong indicator for where demand for data centre capacity is headed. Another indicator for the sector is hardware shipments. Western Digital reported its results and shared data points about where its growth is coming from.
Power constraints are creating difficulties in primary data centre markets around the world and Dublin, Ireland is a case in point. Operators are starting to look for solutions and alternatives around renewables and on-site power generation. Vantage Data Centers is moving forward with on-site generation, Digital Realty partnered with Enel X and Keppel DC REIT signed a wind-based PPA.
The past week saw more data centre expansion activity. STACK Infrastructure revealed plans to build in Dallas, Texas, Equinix is planning to expand in Chile, while in Europe, Google broke ground on a fourth data centre in The Netherlands and AtlasEdge entered Portugal with the acquisition of a pair of sites in Lisbon.
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