By Matt Walker and Arun Menon
Multiple types of companies are investing heavily in data center assets. Two years ago, the data center market was already vibrant, but COVID-19 gave this a boost as enterprises accelerated digital transformation efforts, and multiple sectors (enterprise, government, education…) moved many activities to the cloud. As a result, data center investment has boomed. This investment is coming from multiple sources: webscale and carrier-neutral operators, and from asset management specialists aiming to benefit from growing data center demand. With this increased demand, the market is seeing consolidation and the emergence of new business models. Meanwhile, the technologies deployed in the data center are evolving rapidly. Vendors are creating new products and customizing old ones in order to cater to the data center. Even if you’re steeped in the data center world, it can be hard to keep up. This “Data Center Investment Tracker” provides an up-to-date synthesis of this investment and technology activity.
This 4Q21 tracker is our first edition. The format and scope of this deliverable will evolve over time. This edition describes in detail the following:
Footprint: a summary of the data center footprint, energy usage, and major projects underway of all key webscale and carrier-neutral network operators, and a few large telcos with data center holdings.
Capex: capital expenditures (capex) recorded from 1Q11-3Q21 by the big spenders driving the data center market – webscale and carrier-neutral operators.
Asset management: mini-profiles of 30 asset management companies (mainly private equity firms) with active interests in data centers, summarizing their approach to data center investment, major holdings, and recent developments
Mergers & acquisitions: focusing on the last two years, the tracker provides a summary of 60 significant M&A transactions involving the data center market. That includes the two deals from 4Q21 in excess of $10B each, and the $3.5B deal from January 2022 in which Digital Realty took a majority stake in South Africa-based CNNO, Teraco.
Vendor contracts: a database of 243 contracts between data center operators and vendors, cutting across many different categories of technology, in particular: servers (and the chips that run them), switches, routers, storage, security, optical interconnect, software, and power/cooling. The database attempts to be comprehensive for January 2020 through January 2022.
All information is current as of late January 2022. Capex data is through the September 2021 reporting period (3Q21), as 4Q21 figures were only available for a handful of companies when this report was finalized. The next edition of this report will include financials through year-end 2021.
- Table Of Contents
- Figures & Tables
- Coverage
- Visuals
Table Of Contents
- Abstract
- Data center footprint of major operators
- Capex of major data center operators
- Asset management firms active in data centers
- Data center mergers & acquisitions – summary
- Data center M&A database
- Data center operator contracts with technology vendors
- Data center vendor contracts database
- About
Figures & Tables
- Figure (dynamic): Data center footprint (for 27 companies)
- Figure: Annualized capex by segment, CNNO & Webscale (US$M)
- Figure: Top 15 providers based on 3Q21 annualized capex (US$M)
- Figure: 3Q21 annualized capex ($M) and cumulative % WNO/CNNO total
- Figure: YoY changes in annualized capex, 3Q21 vs. 3Q20
- Figure (dynamic): Asset management firm approach to DC investing, major holdings, and recent developments (for 30 companies)
- Table: Summary of M&A deals included
- Table: Significant M&A deals involving data center operators and assets
- Table: Summary of vendor contracts included
- Table: Major announcements between technology suppliers and data center operators/builders
Coverage
1547 DC Fund II & Harrison
21Vianet
AARNet
ABB
ABRY Partners
ACDC Holdings (Supernap Italia)
ADVA
Africell
AIMS APAC REIT
AirTrunk
Alibaba
Alphabet (Google)
Altaba
Altibox Carrier
Amazon (Amazon Web Services)
AMD
American Tower
Ampere Computing
Angola Cables
Anschutz Investment Company
Apple
Aqua Comms
ARC Solutions
Ardian Capital
Arista Networks
Ascendas REIT
Ascenty
Asia Pacific Telecom
AT&T
AtlasEdge (Liberty Global / DigitalBridge)
Axtel
Azercell Telecom
Azrieli Group
Baidu
Bain Capital
BC Partners
BCE
Berkshire Partners
Beyond.pl
Big Data Exchange (I Squared Capital)
BitNAP Datacenter
Blackstone Inc.
BroadBand Tower
Broadcom
Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
Brookfield Infrastructure
ByteDance
C3ntro Telecom
Capital Online
Carlyle Group
China Media Group
China Mobile
China Telecom
China Telecommunication Tech Labs
China Unicom
ChinaCache
Ciena
Cisco Systems
Citrix
CityFibre
Cloud Capital
CNT
Cognizant
Colo Atl
Colocation Australia
Colt Data Centre Services
Colt Technology Services
Compass Datacenters
Cordiant Capital
Cordiant Digital Infrastructure
CoreSite Realty
CRT Informatique
Cummins
CyrusOne
Cyxtera
Data Foundry
DataBank
DataGryd
DataSite
DC BLOX
Dell Technologies
Delta Power Solutions
DigiPlex
Digital 9 Infrastructure
Digital Colony
Digital Edge
Digital Realty Trust
DigitalBridge
DISH
Djibouti Telecom
Dodid Pte. Ltd.
DT Global Carrier
DuPont Fabros
eBay
EdgeConneX
Edgecore Networks
Ekinops
Empyrion DC
Epsilon Telecommunications
EQT Group
Equinix
Espanix
Etisalat Group
Everstone Capital
everyWAN
Extreme Networks
Facebook
Fiberhome
Fiera Real Estate/SEDCO Capital joint venture
Fortinet
Fujitsu
Fungible
Gaw Capital Partners
GDS
GI Partners L.P.
Global Data Center
Global Infrastructure Partners
Global Switch
GlobalNet
Goldman Sachs Group
GPX Global Systems
Great Hill Partners
Green Mountain
GTT Communications
Guangdong Bluesea Data Development Co. Ltd. (Bluesea)
H3C
H5 Data Centers
Hanoi Telecom
Hitec Power Protection
HP
HPE
Huawei Technologies
I Squared Capital
i3D.net
IBM
i-Data
IKOULA
Indosat
Infinera
Inmark Asset Management Pty Ltd.
Intel
Interxion
IO Data Centers
IP Telecom
IPI Partners
Iron Mountain
Itochu Techno-Solutions
Iusacell
Japan Network Access Point
JD.com
JLL
Jolera
Juniper Networks
Keppel Capital
Keppel REIT
Khazna Data Centers
KKR & Co. L.P.
KT Corp
Kuok Group
Land Securities Group Plc
Lenovo
LG CNS
LightEdge Solutions
Lightstorm Telecom Ventures
LinkedIn
Lumea
M1
Macquarie Capital
Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets
MainOne
Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd
Marcatel
Marvell
MCAP Global Finance UK
Medallion Data Centres
Medina Capital
Menlo Equities
Mercantil do Brasil
Meta (Facebook)
Microsoft
National Security Agency
National Supercomputing Center
NAVER
NEC Corp
Neos Networks
NetApp
NetScout
NEXTDC Limited
NICT Japan
Ningxia Cable TV
NL-ix
Nokia
NorthC Datacenters
Northwest Access Exchange
NTT Communications
NVIDIA
NxtGen Data Centers
Omantel
Ooredoo Qatar
OpenColo
Oracle
Packet
PacketLight Networks
Padtec
PAG
Patria Investments
PCCW
Peak 10
PeaSoup
Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund
Permira I.P Limited
PIT Chile
PLDT
Princeton Digital Group
Providence Equity Partners
Pure Storage
QCT
QTS Realty Trust
Radcom
Rakuten
RETN
Rolls-Royce Power Systems
ROOT Data Center
Ruijie Networks
SAP
Schneider Electric
Sejong Telecom
Sentinel Data Centers
Serverius
Shaw
Shinsegae I&C
Sichuan Unicom
Siemens
SiFive
Sila Realty Trust
Silver Lake
Sixth Street Partners
Smedvig
SoftIron
Southern Cross Cable Limited
SpaceDC
Sparkle
SSE Enterprise Telecoms
Starboard Value Acquisition Corp
StarHub
Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners
Submer
Supermicro
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
Switch, Inc.
Tejas Networks
Telecity
Telefónica del Perú
Telstra
Telx
Tencent
Teraco
The Pittock Block
Thésée DataCenter
T-Mobile Polska
Togocom
TPG Inc.
Triple Point Group
Turkcell
Twitter
U.S. Colo LLC
UK Crown Commercial Service
Uninett
US Department of Energy
Vantage Data Centers
Verizon
Verne Global
Vertiv
ViaWest
Vocus New Zealand
Vodacom South Africa
Vodafone Infrastructure Partners
Vodafone New Zealand
Vodafone Turkey
Vxchnge
Warburg Pincus LLC
WIN Technology
Windstream
Wiwynn
XDC+
XL Axiata
Yandex
Zayo Group Holdings
zColo
Zenlayer
Zoom
ZTE
Visuals
