Hong Kong and Singapore were the only two cities outside of the United States to make the top 10 overall rankings in Cushman & Wakefield's latest Global Data Centre Market Comparison report.
Singapore ranked third place within the top markets globally in all three high-weight categories: market size, fibre connectivity and cloud availability. Its strong performance across categories including its low vacancy rate — reflective of high demand — low environmental risk, and its status as a smart city helped cement its rank despite its recently-lifted two-year moratorium which limited new stock.
Hong Kong jumped to fourth in the overall rankings in the new report, scoring highly across categories; with strong connectivity, consistent demand, availability of cloud services and a business-friendly tax structure offsetting high land prices. By moving up from sixth overall in the 2022 global rankings, the city has reconfirmed its position as a top data centre market globally .
"Hong Kong is one of Asia's leading and still-rising strategic locations for data centers, reflected in its move up in the overall global rankings to fourth place in the 2023 report,” said John Siu, managing director, Hong Kong at Cushman & Wakefield.
On the ground, Cushman & Wakefield Hong Kong recently advised a pan-Asia data centre operator BDx to pre-lease the majority area of a brand new building at No. 38 Wing Kei Road, Kwai Chung, as their third data centre location in Hong Kong.
“This transaction further demonstrates the global demand and market confidence in Hong Kong's data centre market by multinational players,” said Siu.
“We anticipate the data centre segment will continue to grow as the city continues to expand and develop its innovation and technology industry in the upcoming years."
The annual Cushman & Wakefield report, now in its fourth year, ranks major data centre markets around the world according to 13 weighted categories, including market size, fibre connectivity, power cost and environmental risk, to determine the top overall markets as well as the top performing markets in each category.
APAC ripe for data centre boom
Within Asia Pacific, Singapore and Hong Kong were ranked first and second, with Sydney and Seoul tying for third place. Tokyo rounded out the top five markets.
With more accurate data on the size and scope of data centre deployments in mainland China, Beijing and Shanghai have both risen notably in the market size rankings.
In the overall rankings for Asia Pacific, the report ranks Beijing as the sixth placed market and Shanghai as the eighth placed market.
"2022 saw hyperscale tenants continue their expansion across all regions. Hyperscalers, followed closely by co-location providers and developers, have shown increasing interest in secondary and emerging markets which often offer greater availability of, and lower prices for, both land and power. Moving forward, we expect to see secondary markets make significant jumps in the rankings,” said Todd Olson, head of Asia Pacific data centre practice group, Cushman & Wakefield.
