The Dell’Oro Group report, Data Center Physical Infrastructure 5-Year Forecast Report, the data centre physical infrastructure (DCPI) market growth was revised upwards to a 13% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2023 to 2028, to over US$50 billion.
This raised outlook is due to the rising expectations of accelerated computing, which requires investments in higher amperage power distribution, backup power to manage load variability, and liquid cooling to meet the specific physical infrastructure requirements of AI workloads.
“I believe AI is an evolution, not a revolution. To date, most accelerated computing deployments have been in facilities not fully designed to support them,” said Lucas Beran, research director at Dell’Oro Group.
He adds that the next leg-up in the evolution of AI is accelerated computing deployed in facilities with purpose-built power and cooling infrastructure. In many cases, these DCPI orders have already been placed with vendors.
“In turn, DCPI vendors have been making manufacturing investments to support increased capacity, which is expected to materialize in meaningful DCPI market growth over the next 18 months. As deployments of accelerated computing and purpose-built physical infrastructure align, AI workload performance stands to benefit,” added Beran.
DCPI revenue growth is forecast at double-digit rates for most of the forecast period, with particularly elevated revenue growth forecast for 2025.
North America, Asia Pacific excluding China, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) are expected to lead growth over the forecast period at double-digit CAGRs.
Thermal management, power distribution, and three-phase UPS market segments are forecast to grow fastest during the forecast period. Cloud and colocation service providers are expected to account for most of the growth during the forecast period.
