The data center industry was expecting 2020 to be a year of growth, said Hector Moreno.
But Moreno, the Director of Business Development, Data Centers at Fibrebond, and his colleagues had no idea just how much growth that would be.
The coronavirus pandemic sent everyone into their homes, with work, school and play all relying on home connections that ultimately relied on data centers firing on all cylinders. The projections for the year were going to be blown out of the water.
“I think as soon as the pandemic hit, a lot of their acceleration and demand validated those initial plans,” Moreno said. “From a macro level, it’s really increased everybody’s pressure to build. In this space, there’s always sort of a push-pull, cart before the horse, if I build it will they come or just build it just in time, but our customers really want their space as soon as possible.”
It’s a trend that seems unlikely to go away any time soon, even as regulations meant to stop the spread of COVID-19 begin to lift. With companies like Fibrebond benefiting from the work-from-home tools they set up prior to the pandemic and seeing things go well as most employees put in their hours remotely, there may be a shift toward requiring less time in the office.
That will require data centers to keep improving and perhaps getting even closer to customers.
“Absolutely. I think 100%. I think that you can count on,” Moreno said. “When we’re talking about moving from 10 to 5 milliseconds of latency, it’s a big difference. Companies that have strong WiFi networks in their facilities or strong fiber networks don’t really have this issue, but one of the issues coming out of this is, now, you have families putting a huge strain on us. So how do we get to that market?”