Natalie Sinha, Head of Sustainability for Infrastructure sat down with Matt Edgely, COO at Datum Datacentres to discuss data centers: how they work and the sector’s evolution in the coming years.

How would you describe what a data center is, and why are they important?

The demand for digital services is growing rapidly. Governments around the world have recognized the essentiality of high-speed internet and digital infrastructure. As a result, global data demand is expected to nearly triple in the five-year period to 2027 from 3.4 TB in 2022 to 9.7 TB in 2027.

In order to accommodate the growth in data demand, we need more data centers. Data centers are purpose-built facilities to house computing infrastructure. They provide the core infrastructure that underpins all digital activity across government, business and community.

What does Datum do, and what’s your vision?

Datum Datacentres operates network of environmentally efficient, carrier neutral data centers. Our platform supports digital transformation, and we offer flexible contracts, in-house support and service management. Here at Datum, our vision is to continue to build our network of regional data centers in strategic locations.

Data centers often get a lot of negative publicity around their environmental impacts. Why do you think that is?

Data centers are generally seen as environmental monsters. That’s because they now account for between 1-1.5% of global electricity use, and this is expected to increase as more and more data centers come online. We need environmental policies to keep pace with data center growth to ensure that energy efficiency and the potential negative sustainability impacts of data centers are being managed well.

You can now read the full whitepaper at the link below