APAC Data Centre Update

H2 2024

Asia Pacific closed off 2024 with 1,622MW of new capacity going live across the region throughout the year, for a total 12.2GW of operational IT load. There is an additional 14.4GW in the development pipeline, signaling a continuing of the rapid expansion of the data centre sector in Asia Pacific into 2025 and beyond.

Ongoing factors such as the rollout of 5G deployments and shutdown of legacy 2G and 3G telecom networks, cloud adoption, rising digital content consumption, and Internet of Things (IoT) proliferation are continuing to fuel the data centre sector. Hyperscale cloud service providers (CSPs) and colocation operators will remain on a strong growth trajectory over the next 3 – 5 years as they expand their regional portfolios to meet end-client demand. Although Asia Pacific is not witnessing the same level of aggressive demand for AI workloads as the U.S., parts of the region is starting to prepare for the arrival of AI adoption at larger scales.

The sector’s strong fundamentals - rising occupancy rates, stable rental yields, and long-term returns - have attracted significant private equity investment in the Asia Pacific data centre market. In 2024, a Blackstone-led consortium, including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), acquired AirTrunk for a record US$16bn. While such large deals are likely to remain rare, further consolidation activity is expected in 2025 as investors continue to actively pursue smaller or standalone data centre providers in mature markets to expedite their expansions or smaller acquisitions in frontier markets that are difficult to penetrate without a local partner.

Throughout 2024, there were a number of significant power purchase agreements (PPAs) and renewable energy contracts signed, notably by AWS, Google, and SUNeVision. With several markets, including China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, setting thresholds for power usage effectiveness (PUE) as part of broader carbon neutrality goals during the year, an increase in more sustainable power initiatives and exploring of alternatives, such as nuclear energy, is anticipated from the sector.

Our H2 2024 Asia Pacific Data Centre Update covers key nuances of eight prominent primary city markets – Tokyo, External Link Singapore, External Link Sydney, External Link Hong Kong, External Link China, External Link Mumbai, External Link Seoul, External Link Johor, External Link and Jakarta, External Link whilst also providing an overview of six city secondary markets of Delhi, Taipei, Bangkok, Auckland, External LinkManila, External Link and Ho Chi Minh, External Link in order of the size of their current operational capacities.

Also included in this report is our Asia Pacific Data Centre Market Maturity Index External Link (through refined methodology & complimented with additional data validation efforts), which forecasts the potential evolution of 30 markets across the region over the next decade. The parametric based weighted evaluation of the markets’ factors existing & planned capacities, vacancy levels, operator presence & scale and individual asset level build capacities.

 
*For all analysis, Asia Pacific region includes Australia, Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam only.