New Zealand Cloud & Datacenter Convention 2024

The growth of the infrastructure required for New Zealand’s continuing digital progress is accelerating. There is no question that New Zealand is expanding its digital activity rapidly and that this will require a greater datacenter capacity. According to an IndustryARC report, the national datacenter market is estimated currently at 164.8 MW and looking to more than double to 354.15 MW by 2029. This growth will be driven by the roll-out of digital transformation, by the increased deployment of cloud and by upgrades to existing facilities.

This rate of growth has raised a number of operational and strategic questions. A situation where local data needs to be housed in facilities overseas can raise issues of 'jurisdictional risk', that the data housed overseas need to follow overseas rules rather than the rules of the country where the data originated. Recent local growth can be linked to a number of key colocation providers as global cloud providers appear to be at the initial stages of their entry into the New Zealand market. Questions have also been raised as to whether the power grid can cope with the demand of more data centers.

Other challenges faced by local digital infrastructure are those faced by the sector elsewhere around the world - designing and fitting out for high growth, attracting and retaining skilled staff, meeting the full range of sustainability responsibilities beyond energy use including Scope 3, diversity, social and economic impacts. This convention will look at New Zealand’s unique position in the datacenter world and its opportunity to maintain this through sustainable digital growth and all that this approach entails.

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