Since 2018, India has made great strides in advancing industry and delivering services under the auspices of the Digital India Mission. According to a report by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with McKinsey, the "Digital India" initiative is expected to boost India's digital economy to $1 trillion by 2025. The amount of data generated has grown in tandem with technological growth, and so has the demand for data centers. With the rollout of 5G in India looming, data growth is expected to be much faster, as will the impact on data centers. According to JLL, capacity in the data center industry is likely to increase by more than 1,000 megawatts by 2023 to accommodate the growing demands of rapid digitization. The industry is expected to double its installed capacity to 1,008 MW by 2023, up from 499 MW in January-June 2021.

We are also seeing an increase in the number of data edge centers under development and an acceleration in cloud migration. The Internet of Things and "smart everything" is driving cloud migration. Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more important in order to process increasingly large volumes of data and latency-sensitive applications.

Let's take a closer look at these trends and how they will affect data center growth in India.

5G services will drive exponential growth in data consumption

Service providers and private companies will continue to evaluate the most cost-effective ways to increase the capacity and capabilities of 5G implementation plans. On the data center side, 5G provides faster access to information, which will lead to more edge data center deployments. As more and more data becomes latency-sensitive and requires faster access speeds, we are seeing a shift from large core, small edge data center architectures to smaller core, larger edge data center architectures.

Yunxin 5G will greatly increase the data center construction of private enterprises. If you can develop private 5G in the cloud using a cloud architecture with local radios, you will have a data-intensive, latency-sensitive application that will also drive data center and edge data center growth.

IoT will continue to soar

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing at an astonishing rate. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Indian IoT market is expected to reach $9.28 billion by 2025, up from $4.98 billion in 2020. Managers are paying close attention to how to improve operations, such as optimizing transportation and installing sensors in the right locations to assist in the work.

When it comes to enabling IoT and smart devices, it all comes down to data. If you take all the tiny data points involved with something as simple as a door sensor (when did it open, when it closed, whether it was locked or unlocked, who unlocked or locked it) and multiplied it by the number of sensors in the app (temperature , occupancy, lighting, water usage, etc.) it's all data that needs to be stored somewhere and accessed by an app or user. The infrastructure that makes this work is all in the data center.

We are seeing more and more data that is time-sensitive and needs to be processed at the edge, so IoT is also driving the growth of edge data centers. Today, public cloud companies are responsible for most edge deployments, and some providers are building edge data centers for latency-sensitive applications such as video streaming and delivery. For example, the rapid growth of streaming video services is a major driver of this trend. In fact, video applications—such as entertainment, security surveillance, data mining, and security—will be most impacted by IoT in the data center. Rather than evaluating static data or photos, companies need to store this data and act on it in real time.

Cloud migration will continue

People are flocking to the cloud because of its scalability and low cost. According to the 2022 EY-NASSCOM Cloud Survey, while 67% of large enterprises have accelerated their cloud adoption, 39% of midsize companies and 38% of small companies have started their cloud journey.

In late 2021, HPE reported a 46% year-over-year increase in orders for its GreenLake cloud platform, and AWS's year-over-year growth of about 40%. It's a compelling argument for the cloud when you can rent something and scale it in days instead of planning and building something in years. Both public and private cloud infrastructure will grow. Large enterprises will use a hybrid model, while smaller companies will use the public cloud alone. Slowing growth is data security and compliance constraints.

We will increasingly rely on artificial intelligence and augmented reality

In 2022, the use cases for combining AI and ML with augmented reality (AR) will increase significantly. Facebook announced a name change and is now positioning the entire company in AR-powered virtual worlds. AR will also be used for interfaces, so B2C marketing, sales, training and service applications will all benefit from AR. For example, a data center technician's AR could be linked to a work order app, allowing them to use a smartphone to see which cable in a switch needs to be repaired.

The rise of Metaverse will also drive increased use of AR. We could see a point in the near future where users can replicate physical interactions with virtual ones. We're used to seeing each other in video, and we're going to get used to seeing each other in the AR world.

We need AI because as you get more data, you're going to need AI to process it - you can't do it manually anymore (think facial recognition or contact tracing). Machine learning can be used whenever there is a large amount of complex data. This could help solve supply chain crises, for example, by automating shipping routes and helping with logistics. The most dangerous aspect of AI is putting too much faith in it. We may place too much emphasis on algorithms instead of providing high-quality data. When it comes to data, any AI bias can lead to poor decisions and false assumptions.

Use of single-mode fiber to grow with migration to 400/800 Gb networks

The adoption of single-mode fiber has accelerated. While multimode fiber remains popular, deployments of singlemode fiber are growing faster than multimode deployments. As data centers reach speeds of 400 or 800 Gbps, we are seeing more and more single-mode fiber being deployed, especially in cloud and hyperscale data centers.

You might think that reaching 10Gb or 100Gb today means the transition to 400Gb is a long way off. However, if you add up the number of 10Gb (or faster) ports that you are responsible for supporting, you'll see that the need to migrate to 400Gb and beyond isn't really that far off.

Hybrid work styles go mainstream

In 2021, the widespread use of videoconferencing for work, education, and leisure has a major impact on data centers, and companies in India are now embracing hybrid work styles. When people record live video chats, a lot of video storage space is required, and users need fast, jitter-free access to the video. This will also affect data centers.

As a result, as 5G, IoT, remote work, and cloud migration place increased demands on data centers, IT managers need to respond to the increased demand by expanding storage, using AI and ML to process data faster, building edge data centers, and deploying single-mode fiber. speed. Despite ongoing COVID and supply chain issues, we expect more data center activity as IT managers restructure for the new normal.