The world we live in is ridden with data. Consciously or unconsciously, we are generating and making use of it all the time. Every other run-of-the-mill activity like video-streaming on the internet, beating the blues on social media channels, ordering food, booking a ride, or simply doing our regular corporate work, etc. is generating colossal volumes of data.

It won’t be wrong to say that to sustain our rapidly evolving lives, data has a pivotal role to play and to sustain those growing volumes of data, the world needs efficient data centres.

In that light, we will find that ASEAN has become the fastest growing data centre market of the world. So much so, that several reports predict that it will record an 8 percent increase in CAGR between 2021 to 2026, thereby reaching an all-time high of $3.4billion by 2024.

Owing to the rapidly growing industries in ASEAN that require better internet networks and storage capacities for the generated big data, the data centres in the region are working round the clock. In the process, they get quite heated up and not to forget that the tropical climate of the region just adds to it.

As a result, there is a huge emphasis being put on data centre cooling that basically comprises numerous techniques and equipment to ensure that a data centre set-up is running at ideal temperatures.

The most noteworthy point here is that, not only is data centre cooling responsible for the optimum functioning of the data centre but it also tells how sustainable and energy efficient is the data centre.

As per a study by Digital Realty across enterprises in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, 66 percent of the respondents felt that sustainability and energy efficiency are the most important factors when choosing a third-party data centre provider. The study further revealed that cooling requirements represented 35 to 40 percent of the total datacentre energy demand.

At a time when the leading tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google are setting standards with ambitious carbon neutral and other sustainability goals, more and more pressure is being built on creating energy-efficient cooling technologies in ASEAN.

As per Jessica Cheam, managing director of Eco-Business, it is crucial for the data centres to meet the energy efficiency demands as that will enable the different countries in meeting their climate targets.

According to Technavio, the data centre cooling market in ASEAN will have an incremental growth of USD 1.03 billion, accelerating at a CAGR of around 15% during 2021-2025.

Below mentioned are some of the recent developments under data centre cooling:

• CDU1200- Nortek Air Solutions, in 2019, created a 1,200-kW coolant distribution unit named as CDU1200 which is also the single most powerful coolant distribution unit added to its ServerCool data centre liquid cooling series. Not just high-performance computing data centres and corporate network edge, the technology is also ideal for government and co-location data centre facilities.

• Rittal HPC Cooled-by-Zutacore- An ideal solution for companies that use intense computing power, Rittal HPC Cooled-by-Zutacore, is a cooling system launched by ZutaCore and Rittal. Their strategic partnership is aimed towards pushing the data centre market towards further growth through their innovation that produces an output of over 900W per server.

• SpaceDC- In 2020, SpaceDC, a Singaporean company, launched the first green data centre in Indonesia that uses natural gas to produce electricity. The data centre is also powered with the technology to recycle waste heat from gas generators and produce more chilled water for its set-up that is responsible for cooling down the data centre halls.

• EcoDataCenter- In May 2020, EcoDataCenter emerged as the first climate-friendly data centre of the world, where it introduced a new technique for liquid-based cooling. This technology was an outcome of the collaboration between energy company Schneider, cooling technology company Iceotope and consulting firm Avnet. The technology reduces energy consumption at the data centre by almost 14 percent.

Moreover, the growth of data centre cooling market in ASEAN is also a direct outcome of the investments made by the private and public sector in projects concerning banking, telecommunication, and IT industries. Not to forget, that the ongoing boom of e-commerce in the region will also add to more internet usage and data traffic, thereby further promoting the growth of data centre cooling market in Southeast Asia.