Change in store for IT cooling market

UK: The cooling demands of large hyper data centres are set dramatically change the market for precision cooling over the next five to 10 years.

According to a new market study from BSRIA, the use of traditional computer room air-conditioning units is expected to drop dramatically as data centres opt for a combination of free cooling, liquid cooling and chilled-water cooling.

Hyper scale data centres such as those of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, AWS and Yahoo! are very open to deploying “new” technologies, for example: modular, outdoor AHUs/evaporative cooling. Data centres in general are evolving rapidly, says BSRIA, maintaining that the standard design that was common in the last two decades is giving way to more flexible configurations that more closely match the sophisticated needs of more discerning, better informed customers.

Data centre capacity is growing with the increasing number of IP connections, increasing traffic and need for storage. The precision cooling products installed in data centres are estimated at $1.9bn covering the 10 largest markets worldwide in 2014 and these markets are expected to show healthy growth up to 2017.

North America is the largest market, accounting for around 40% of the global data centre cooling market. China accounts for just under a third and UK 8%. Other countries include Russia, Germany, France, Australia and Brazil, of which Germany is by far the largest, accounting alone for 6% of the global market.

The report also studies, as a separate sector, the non-IT precision cooling market – healthcare and laboratories, manufacturing, industrial, semi-conductors and education.