Vertiv Survey Says Edge Computing Triples by 2025

Vertiv’s recent survey Data Centre 2025: Closer to the Edge reveals data centre operators and owners in Asia Pacific are highly optimistic about the future of edge computing, with 57% of respondents from Singapore expecting IT resource utilisation at the edge to reach at least 60% by 2025.

This increase reflects a global sentiment on the increasing prevalence of edge computing in the data centre landscape, which is fueled by more process-intensive applications such as machine learning, AI, IoT and 5G technology. Globally, 55% of respondents expect IT resource utilisation rates to grow at the edge by 2025.

With more than 800 data centre professionals participating in Vertiv’s survey, Vertiv Country Manager Hitesh Prajapati says when they first conducted the survey in 2014, edge computing was still nascent.

“Five years ago, the idea of edge computing was quite new. Back then, many organisations expected to allocate their resources towards the cloud and/or hybrid architectures. Now, edge computing is clearly regarded as one of the key drivers for digital transformation and an important opportunity space. We are seeing many data centre operators and enterprises in Asia, including Singapore, being extremely positive about investing in and growing edge sites to support the fast proliferating applications at the edge,” says Prajapati.

According to Prajapati, the migration to the edge is changing the way today’s industry leaders think about the data centre.

Among survey participants who have edge sites today or expect to have edge sites in 2025, more than half (53%) expect the number of edge sites they support to grow by at least 100% with 20% expecting a 400% or more increase. Collectively, survey participants expect their total number of edge computing sites will grow 226% globally between now and 2025.

“The edge requires a different approach to critical infrastructure solutions. Micro data centres, which are rapidly deployable, flexible and compact are fast becoming the preferred approach to enabling many of today’s high data bandwith deployments,” says Prajapati.

Other interesting insights claims participants aren’t as bullish on the prospects for solar and wind power in the data centre as they were in 2014. Then, they projected about 34% of data centre power would come from those sources by 2025. Now, the expectation is 21% – still optimistic, but mindful of the ambitious timeline.

Interestingly, globally, 16% of participants expect to be retired by 2025, exacerbating an already problematic talent shortage. In the U.S., that number is an alarming 33%.

For further information, read the full results on Data Centre 2025: Closer to the Edge

(Ed. Vertiv is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA. It says it offers digital continuity solutions for digital architecture; employing around 20,000 people in over 130 countries.)