Data has become the lifeblood of today's global digital economy, powering everything from retail and manufacturing to infrastructure and transportation, and the data centre is the core of this influx. By 2025, it is expected that over 175 zettabytes of data will be produced annually, thanks to the rapid proliferation of data across our digital world.

The data centre, as an ever-increasing part of modern business, has an impact on many areas of the enterprise, including data backup and recovery, networking, website hosting, email management and security, as well as providing support for cloud storage applications and e-commerce transactions.

The world has changed dramatically, and the way we do business is changing as well. This transformation will begin to speed up. Data centres are required to operate the operations of industrial organisations in all sectors that produce and use large quantities of data. In the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, increased remote working and virtual collaboration has ensured that demand for data centres remains high.

Thriving in the new normal

The global coronavirus pandemic exposed flaws in data centres' disaster recovery plans. Faced with a rapidly evolving, long-lasting global crisis that has confounded preparedness aimed mainly at isolated, short-term crises, IT leaders have realised that the "new normal" will remain a shifting target for months.

Many more businesses will shift their workloads to data centres as the global economic crisis forces them to re-evaluate their products and re-size their operations. These facilities will play a critical role in meeting their efficiency standards.

As companies change operations and re-invent themselves to deal with new social distancing policies, restricted movements, and supply disruptions, Covid-19 has paved the way for digital transformation. When the ‘new standard' of post-pandemic reality sets in, a new digital era will quickly emerge.

As businesses update their digital infrastructure to cope with modern ways of operating, the advent of a new market climate in the aftermath of Covid-19 is expected to accelerate cloud computing and digitalization.

The data centre is more than just a safe and secure facility with reliable power and a network in today's volatile environment; it is a vital addition to many corporate infrastructures, a dependable extension of the IT team, and an essential factor for success.

Digital capabilities can gradually serve as a barometer for economic resilience, and businesses that can fully digitise can thrive after the Covid-19 crisis.

The data centre industry appears to be on track for a long run, fuelled by the pandemic's pace of digital transformation across the business world.

The experts agreed that the combination of rising demand for digital services, fueled by developments such as remote work and home entertainment, and widespread access to low-cost capital paints an especially rosy image for the sector's near-term future.

Data centre demand has increased as remote working technologies play a critical role in keeping businesses operational during a lockdown, according to industry executives, who cited an increase in the number of inquiries received by builders.