Datacentre market in Scotland has huge potential for growth - Michael Merriman

The global pandemic has led to a massive increase in the use of online services as part of our daily lives; from the surge in online ordering of everything from food deliveries to cars, streaming services such as Netflix, Disney + and Amazon Prime replacing trips to the cinema, and video calling services enabling us to keep in touch with family and friends when we had to stay at home.

The vast majority of office-based workers have also spent much of that time working from home instead of going into an office every day. As we move from recovery, Scotland has its eyes set on economic growth with strong ambitions in the tech sector to support industries such as health, space, and financial services.

All this activity has led to a colossal increase in the amount of data being generated and needing to be stored, transferred, and analysed to ensure that all these services can be delivered. All this work is the job of the thousands of datacentres across the globe which provide all the services needed to run the global network of computers we refer to as “The Cloud”.

Datacentres are secure facilities which contain row upon row of powerful computers used to host the websites and run the apps that we use to access services from our smartphones, tablets, and home computers and to support our growth sectors of the future. Our new-found online habits have seen their usage surge, and the number of new datacentres built across the world in recent years has skyrocketed to support such an increase in demand.

Michael Merriman, Associate Director (International Connectivity and Data Centres), Digital Infrastructure at the Scottish Futures Trust

New technologies such as 5G mobile networks and the “Internet of Things” will continue to drive ever greater demand for more datacentres and the closeness to our data will become increasingly important as time goes on.

All this change presents a unique opportunity for Scotland.

The datacentre market in Scotland has huge potential for growth, a fact which was recognised in March of last year when Scottish Government published its Vision and Action Plan to encourage the creation of a new generation of green datacentres here in Scotland.

Our Digital Infrastructure team at the Scottish Futures Trust is working closely with the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise to deliver that Vision and Action Plan and has published a detailed report of 14 strategic sites located across Scotland which have been identified as being well positioned for future datacentre development. We’ve spent several years working with industry providers through our Host in Scotland initiative to develop our understanding of the datacentre market so we can promote Scotland on the international stage. Working in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, we are looking to strengthen Scotland’s positioning in the datacentre market using a ‘cluster’ building approach which targets attracting inward investment and talent, stimulating new business growth, and boosting research and innovation.

The global datacentre market is fiercely competitive. Fortunately, Scotland has several unique attributes that make it an attractive location for new datacentre development, key amongst them being our wealth of renewable energy options for these power-hungry centres, our climate (which reduces the need for artificial cooling), our skilled workforce, and the highly competitive price of land for development in comparison to other locations.

With all these advantages on our side, Scotland surely has a bright future as the new home for all things data.

Michael Merriman, Associate Director (International Connectivity and Data Centres), Digital Infrastructure at the Scottish Futures Trust