In Data Centre 2025: Closer to the Edge, a global, industry-wide survey conducted by Vertiv, 57% of respondents from Singapore expect IT resource utilisation at the edge to reach at least 60% by 2025.

 

This 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, artificial intelligence, internet of things and 5G technology. Globally, 55% of respondents expect IT resource utilisation rates to grow at the edge by 2025.

 

The migration to the edge is changing the way today’s industry leaders think about the data centre. Amongst the 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.

 

More than 800 data centre professionals participated in Vertiv’s survey. Among the other notable results:

 

–            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.

–            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%.