As more and more companies in the Middle East and North African region actively pursue their digital transformation journeys, spends on data centres continue increasing.

The Gartner Report: Colocation-Based Interconnection Will Serve as the ‘Glue’ for Advanced Digital Business Applications states,”It is unlikely that enterprises will be able to build rich digital business applications based solely on a traditional on-premises data center, with a limited number of data sources and applications.” What will make or break companies will be their ‘ability to integrate multiple applications, data types and data sources in a secure, predictable, lower-latency fashion.’

In 2019, industry experts estimate that in MENA alone, data centre spend will hit a record-high of US$5 billion. This reflects a 2 per cent growth from 2018.

According to reports, colocation providers will be investing millions of dollars in MENA towards the deployment of bigger, better facilities. “The increasing investments towards the development of a digital economy by laying submarine fiber cables, improving rural and urban broadband connectivity, and aiding in the establishment of new facilities that enable technological advancements will drive the demand in the global data center market” says a global data centre report.

Moreover, the widespread use of 4G LTE technology and upcoming 5G rollouts will result in higher internet penetration. Edge computing is yet another factor fosterting facilities development in MENA data centre markets.

Use of cloud-computing services, big data, IoT and AI is propelling operators to adopt high-performance IT infrastructure in the region.

Off-premise data centres expansion in the Middle East, will disrupt the structures of technology sector at a pace higher than the rest of the world, experts say. At least nine public cloud data centers in the region would be operational in 2019, up from only one public cloud facility until last year.

Modernising data centre infrastructure will remain a top priority in 2019 for organisations to store, secure, and analyse more data than ever before, deliver new digital business models, and scale up as businesses grow.