At GITEX Global 2024, industry experts emphasised the data centre sector's potential for job creation, economic growth, and technological advancement while stressing the importance of sustainable practices in data centre development.
GITEX Global 2024 is the world’s largest tech and startup event and it hosted the Middle East’s largest data centre gathering last week in Dubai.
The conference programme underscored the far-reaching implications of AI in data infrastructure, a driving force behind the rapidly expanding billion-dollar global market. Leading enterprises captivated the audience with their innovative solutions, showcasing the future of hyperscale, modular, and edge data centres.
As businesses increasingly turn to AI, the global data centre market is projected to reach USD $256 billion by the end of this year and will rise to USD $775 billion by 2034.
Driving job opportunities & benefiting society
On “Data Centres Universe”, conversations focused on how hyperscale, edge, and modular data centres can contribute to the growth in the presence of the sector’s biggest names. Major players, including Khazna, Legrand, Vertiv, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, DELL, Google Cloud, IBM, and Lenovo, convened to share their perspectives on the evolving trajectory of the industry, explore potential avenues for accelerated growth, and underscore the critical role of expansion in catalysing global ambitions for AI-driven innovation.
Hassan Al Naqbi, CEO of Khazna Data Centers, the MENA region’s largest hyperscale wholesale data centre provider, explained during a panel discussion that more data centres not only boost the market’s growth but also build capacity, supporting talent development and fostering employment to meet the increasing demand.
He said: “A lot of people think that data centres are not a job creation machine. However, data centres are vital for economies and have different roles involved. If you look at all the hyperscales, their data centres are having a huge impact on the economy as people can secure jobs which are vital for the day-to-day operations.”
Sustainability matters
As the conversation shifted toward the future of data centres, industry experts emphasised the importance of sustainable practices in their development as the industry’s advancements enable the next-generation of tech solutions and services.
Marc Marazzi, vice president of Legrand Data Center Solutions, shared his perspective on the need for careful planning and environmental responsibility in this rapidly expanding market. He believes the industry will go from strength to strength, but organisations must exercise caution in their decision-making when building data centres taking into account long-term considerations of how the world will evolve over the next decade.
He said: “It's great to see many taking the green initiative very seriously and looking at the way they are building and cooling data centres. Today, they are bigger than ever before and being built faster but we must not lose sight of the importance of how we manufacture, what we are installing and how they are managed. Data centres are built with 15 years in mind and we have to think what they would look like in a specific time and get it right from the beginning.”
