Eyeing an uptick in edge data center demand

Edge data centers are generally small data center facilities — designed for IT workloads up to a few hundred kilowatts — that process data closer to the population of local end users and devices. Earlier in 2021, we surveyed data center owners/operators and product and service suppliers to gauge demand and deployments. The findings were consistent: Data center end-user organizations and suppliers alike expect an uptick in edge data center demand in the near term.

The study suggests a small majority of owners/operators today use between one and five edge data centers and that this is unlikely to change in the next two to three years. This is likely an indicator of overall demand for edge computing — most organizations have some requirement for edge, but do not expect this to change significantly in the short term.