Companies are now prioritising AI as a critical factor for business expansion. To cope with the mounting demand, the creation of new data centres will need to speed up, according to Stantec’s Principal and Mission Critical Market Lead, Nicholas Blay.
The emergence of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that comprehends and responds to user inputs, was a turning point for the mainstream acceptance of AI technology.
It rapidly gained immense popularity, achieving the remarkable feat of becoming the fastest application to garner 100 million users.
However, it is just one of the myriad ways AI will impact our future. AI’s widespread embrace holds profound consequences for the data centre sector that spans across various domains.
Over the past two decades, the surging demand for data centres can be traced back to the escalating need for storage and computing capabilities.
This trend, coupled with the shift from on-premises to cloud infrastructure, has sparked a transformation in requirements, leading to a substantial surge in the size of data centres.
Now, AI is poised to be the next major disruptor. A multitude of uncertainties loom, such as the impact of AI on the job market, energy consumption, and data privacy. However, one thing is certain: AI will require more data centres to operate than we currently have.
Looking back to 10-15 years ago, a data centre might use one megawatt (MW) – 1,000,000 watts – and now the industry is looking to 150-250 megawatt facilities, according to Mr Blay.
“As a comparison for energy usage on that, you’re talking about the energy usage of 150,000 homes, just to power one data centre. And we’re currently developing and building all over the country to support cloud-based applications, which AI sits in,” Mr Blay said.
With everyone moving online during the pandemic there was an explosion in the number of data centres dotting the country.
“And I think a lot of that growth is here to stay,” Mr Blay said.
“Where we see the next growth in the data centre market is AI.”
Mr Blay said AI programs require a lot of computing power and that will mean more data halls are required to house the servers that are needed to run the applications.
Australia has witnessed a steady increase in its data centre floor space over the past few years, with growth rates reaching up to 14 per cent. This trend is projected to continue for the next five years, driven by investments in both large-scale hyperscale centres and smaller-scale facilities.
New South Wales remains the largest date centre market in Australia, but Victoria burgeounng scene is catching up with a large pipeline of supply under construction.
Victoria has 300MW under construction, with NSW having a pipeline of planned or potential sites comprising around 1,320MW.
Find out more about Stantec’s efforts in the field here.