Where in the World should I put my Data Center? 2012 Data Centre Risk Index by Cushman&Wakefield

If Greenpeace had its wish your #1 criteria for where your data center goes is the renewable energy content.  But, as we all know anyone who would do this wouldn't have a job in the data center business.  Renewable energy is important, but it is not the the #1 criteria.  #1 issues are Energy availability and cost, Bandwidth, and Ease of doing business.

Cushman&Wakefield just released their 2012 data centre risk index that provides a perspective in line with current data center thinking.  Here is a data center risk mapped to the world.

Here is the criteria that Cushman&Wakefield used to rate countries. Note the sustainable energy is in Tier 2 which is 35% and 10% of the area is for sustainable energy, equalling 3.5% out of the total.

Should Greenpeace be protesting Cushman?  Will they?  Most likely not.

Greenpeace's criteria for what makes a good data center site is here.

Cushman's study shows the following as the top 10 countries for data centers on page 7 of their report.

It is good to see Cushman added more countries to its report for 2012.

Comments

[Brian Rae]

You know, I'm not sure Greenpeace will be too upset by this. The scandanavian countries which use lots of hydro/geo-thermal are creeping nicely up the league tables and you can start to see a swing in the industry towards locations like these - it may be driven more by power cost, security and availability rather than power source, but the effect is the same.
(Declaration - I have an interest as I am with Thor Data Centre Iceland)

[Eric Goudy]

Clean energy is slowly growing...higher gas prices will increase the demand for more innovative green technology and that will make its growth over into the data center world.

[Steve Booker]

It is interesting to see Brazil achieving greater attention and being highlighted in an optimistic light. As a market place there are, as with so many emerging markets, opportunity tainted with risk and in some cases that risk is more difficult to define as it is more than just physical / infrastructure security or commercial investment security, but involves the significant uncertainties of the political and cultural landscape.
However one must also consider the potential that the investment decision makers, whose notional tendency may well be risk averse, apply an overly heavy weighting where there is insufficient understanding of the significant differences in the political / cultural environment from their existing ‘comfortable’ markets, thus resulting in a cautious ranking. When if one took a more pragmatic and longer term perspective, based on the broader geo political landscape, the decision making process for recommendations for technology investment, albeit in currently less stable countries, may well yield greater rewards for both global business and commercial stakeholders.
Brazil with its wealth of human and natural resources is, in my humble opinion, a country that already offers opportunity for investors who are prepared to work collaboratively with in-country nationals, and furthermore will, within the next 5-7 years, provide economic growth figures that we in the west may well look back and wonder ‘how’ did they do that!