The document discusses trends driving increased demand for data centers globally and in Asia Pacific. It notes that cloud workloads and traffic are expected to more than triple and increase at 33% annually by 2019. This will require more data center capacity and infrastructure upgrades. Countries in Asia are working to attract technology firms' data center investments through incentives and policies. Hong Kong is well positioned as a data center hub but needs to address challenges like limited land supply and coordination between industry and government to better facilitate growth and competitiveness in this sector.

1. Juniper Innovation Day 2016
Enhancing Hong Kong’s
Competitiveness Through Data
Center and Cloud Computing –
Trends and Policies

2. Factors driving data
center demand
Cloud services and
storage
Connected devices
Digital entertainmentWorlwide spending on
cloud services is
expected to reach
more than $107 billion
in 2017

3. “
the global cloud workloads will be more than
triple from 2014 to 2019, and the global
cloud traffic will increase at a compound
annual growth rate of 33% over the same
period. As a result, the global workloads for
data centres will more than double from 2014
to 2019, and the global traffic will increase at
a compound annual growth rate of 25% over
the same period
Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and
Methodology, 2014–2019

4. Long term trend beyond
2016
◇Server workload
◇Power demands
◇Network bandwidth
◇Storage

5. DCs need to stay
competitive
Shortens the traditional
life cycles of data centers
Increases the need for
infrastructure refresh in older
data centers

6. “
“About 20 percent of the data
centers in the region (Asia
Pacific) are more than 8 years old
and are not really geared up to
handle the demands of modern
high density computing
platforms,”
Simon Piff
VP of Enterprise Infrastructure research at
IDC Asia Pacific to Datacenter Dynamics

7. Key questions
◇What are the changes in the demand and supply of data
center from the trend of cloud computing?
◇How is the industry adapting?
◇What can be done to improve HK’s attractiveness as an
international data center hub and stay competitive?

8. Big data
analysis
FinTech
IoT and
Smart Cities
Mega trends

9. Latest Data
Center
Development in
Asia

10. Tech Firms looks to Asia
Google chose Singapore and Taiwan as its data
center in Asia, investing over USD1bn in total.
◇Singapore: $500m on a second, larger, multilevel
data center to go online in mid-2017
◇Taiwan: allocated $600m for Data Center and $66
million to increase capacity
Amazon Web Services launched data center
infrastructures in India in 2016, and already set up
data centers in Korea, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo,
and Sydney in Asia.

11. APAC Govts race to attract DC
investments
◇Singapore: government-led Singapore Data
Center Park, pro-biz, green incentives
◇Taiwan: a vision to make TW the next APAC
Information Operations Center, land policy
◇South Korea: government driven huge
investment in IT industry, encourage startups
◇China: tech firms going global fast, Shenzhen’s
initiative in Internet Finance driving DC service
demand
◇Others: tax incentives

12. Varied approaches in DC
facilitation
◇ Incentives, e.g. tax breaks,
cheap land, facility
maintenance services
◇ Proactive communication
and liaison with Tech
companies
◇ Government driven
cooperation

13. What’s for Hong
Kong?

14. HK as key regional data
center destination
◇Low tax rate
◇Well-established legal system
◇One of the safest place to build DCs in Asia
◇Extensive business network
◇Reliable energy supply
◇Extensive and reliable network connectivity
◇Blooming start-ups
◇IP protection

15. Existing government support
◇Land Supply: Industrial Estates, Greenfield Sites Available
for Sale, Land Earmarked for Data Centers
◇ Data Centre Facilitation Unit and Thematic Portal
(OGCIO)
◇Waiver fee exemption for change in use of parts of
existing industrial buildings
◇Tailor-made lease modifications of industrial lots for data
centre use

16. “
ITB: Currently, 12 sites with a total of about 19 hectares of land
in the Tai Po and TKO Industrial Estates are designated for the
development of high-tier data centres, providing a floor area of
over 300 000 sq m. Upon completion of several data centres in
TKO, Kwai Chung and Tsuen Wan (including IEs and those
provided by the private sector) in the coming two years, the
GFA for data centre development in Hong Kong will increase to
660 000 sq m to meet the market demand in the next few
years. Moreover, we have reserved three hectares of land in
TKO for data centre development by the private sector.
LCQ6, December 2015
But while in SGR, total data center space is around 2.3
million sq m

17. Land supply remains a
key issue
◇Tseung Kwan O, New Territories New
Development Areas (Lok Ma Chau Loop area)
◇Conversion of industrial building: hard to meet
long term demand
◇How much land do we need to increase DC
service provision in short to medium term
◇Data center land supply policy needed

18. What we can do?
◇Coordination to speed up land supply and cut red tape
◇High quality infrastructure
◇Space for DC companies to leverage on economies of scale
and expand
◇More value-added services e.g. IaaS
◇Support startups and local tech firms to grow SME demand
for DC services and public cloud services
◇Green data centers
◇ Enhance cloud computing security for critical infrastructure
◇Robust telecommunications infrastructure, Pro-Business
environment, free flow of information, protection of data
privacy, large pool of ICT professionals

19. Challenges ahead
◇Land supply
◇Shorter lead-time to meet the needs of tech firms,
financial institutions and telecom operators
◇Staying relevant, advanced planning and better
coordination
◇Is DS high priority inside the government?
◇Facilitate partnerships with global players to build new
facilities
◇Providing attractive incentive packages

20. Thanks!
charlesmok@charlesmok.hk
Facebook: Charles Mok 莫乃光