There is no doubt that, while 2020 was a washout for most of us, the forced change in consumer habits was hugely beneficial to data centre operators. Internet shopping has become the norm for many, as has flexible office working, all of which has led to an increased demand for cloud-based services. If it exists on the cloud, there is a data centre behind it.

As a result, people around the globe produce 2.5 billion gigabytes of data every day. That number is now expected to reach 463 billion gigabytes per day by 2025, according to organisations such as the International Data Corporation (IDC). While the big players in the tech world — the likes of Google, Amazon, and Facebook — have their own network of enterprise data centres, the recent growth has been with third-party, commercially operated co-location data centres.

The increased demand for data centres (in particular co-location data centres) has also led to increased investment within the sector. Real estate in