KUALA LUMPUR: Carrier-neutral data centre services provider AIMS Group is well positioned to ride on the growing demand for data centres and cloud services, which are the backbone of the digital economy, said its chief executive officer Chiew Kok Hin.
Businesses, especially those in telecommunications, retail, education, finance and social networking services rely heavily on data centres now more than ever, he noted.
“AIMS expects that the increase in business demand will also result in industry growth. This means more investors will look to invest in the data centre space,” he said.
The data centre and co-location market in Southeast Asia is tipped to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 12.9 per cent to reach US$3.4 billion by 2024.
“We are well established and know where our strengths lie and where we have a competitive advantage.
“The ecosystem that AIMS has built will ensure that the group continues to thrive as the data centre industry grows,” Chiew told Bernama in an interview.
Southeast Asia has been the focus of its emerging data centre market for the past few years with local businesses and global players flooding the market with demand for technology.
Data centre infrastructure has been the driving force in the rise of the digital economy.
This was apparent in 2020 when cloud computing technology enabled the nation to persevere and adapt to the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This trend will continue well into and past 2021. It is an enormous challenge and also an opportunity for data centres as digital infrastructures will be central to this transition,” he stressed.
The pandemic-driven information technology (IT) modernisation is a continuation of the enterprise shift from on-premise legacy IT platforms and systems to more agile cloud technologies in third-party data centres.
“Over the top (OTT) players are looking for a comprehensive portfolio of services ranging across connectivity, data centres and managed services,” Chiew said.
“Direct access to three major global cloud service providers and a comprehensive suite of premier data centre solutions reinforces AIMS’ commitment towards supporting digitalisation among businesses.”
He reckons that postponing IT transformation projects won’t be an option in 2021 as companies adjust their IT roadmaps to compete in a shifting business landscape, noting that the pandemic has placed an emphasis on flexibility, which will accelerate the ongoing shift to new architectures and software-defined, programmable infrastructures.
“All of this adds up to a massive surge in demand for data centres and cloud infrastructure to be bigger, faster, ready-to-scale, available everywhere and able to fulfil the stringent requirements and service level agreement set by tech giants.”
As the world makes online and cloud migration more permanent, AIMS anticipates widespread acceptance of the data centre as a digital economy hub, supporting increased reliance on telemedicine and health, enhanced e-commerce, global telecommunications and mass media.
Apart from the more traditional role of storing information securely, data centres today harness the power of artificial intelligence and big data to perform core business functions such as data-driven decision making, learning and analysing the behaviour of network security, and detecting cybersecurity abnormalities.
As one of the data centre pioneers of Southeast Asia, AIMS boasts nearly 30 years of experience in designing, building and operating premier data centres in the region.
“Businesses can also leverage on our one-stop platform for cloud deployment as we provide direct and private access to three major global cloud service providers – Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud platform for lower latency, enhanced security, and ease of cloud access,” he said.
Data centre operators need to be smart on how to tackle challenges in the face of climate change, not just from the perspective of managing and efficiently using energy but also from the kinds of technology that they deploy.
This is important in order to continue efficient consumption of energy even as the load on data centres grows in tandem with their business, he added.
“Configuring a combination of different technologies affect power usage for IT load and cooling. Once a data centre is able to lower its energy consumption, this, in turn, reduces its power usage effectiveness score and its implications on the environment,” he explained.
Apart from climate change, he said laws and regulations, resources, and pricing schemes are the other challenges that data centres have to take into consideration if they are to be sustainable.
“Each country has its own set of laws and regulations governing its data centre industry. This needs to be balanced against the potential advantages of foreign investment such as capital injection into the economy and knowledge transfer,” Chiew said.
“Foreign companies then need to find a way to align their business with the jurisdiction of the countries that they are planning on expanding into.” — Bernama