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.
Digital growth almost always comes at some carbon cost. The digital world also offers considerable potential for improved sustainability through replacing activities that can be carbon-heavy with on-line equivalents (travelling, meeting, shopping, learning, socializing etc.). As a foundation of the digital world, data centres have a key role in balancing the growth in demand for their service with a strategy toward sustainability. This keynote will look at how data centres can demonstrate leadership in this space.
According to most researchers and commentators, New Zealand is poised for strong growth in demand for data centres and the recent upsurge in data centre investment activity validates that opinion. This session will look at the projections for the growth of data centres and associated infrastructure in New Zealand and the factors behind the projections.
Together with core requirements of reliability, resilience and cost, the sustainability of power supply has increasingly come into focus as the leading source of carbon across the life of a data centre. As demand for data centre service rises in New Zealand rises, will energy supply particularly from renewable sources keep up and how will this shape the equipment and solutions that are required for the data centre?
As digital technologies have begun to transform everyday life, so the “AI data centre” has emerged. How are the requirements of AI and associated digital technologies in terms of learning, testing and implementation changing how data centres are designed, built and operated?
Data centres, networks and storage have been operated and managed in separation. As technology evolves in response to the need for speed of service and accuracy of response so the integration of the management of these three components becomes tighter in physical and virtual forms. How is data centre operation adapting to this?
Which key pieces of recent and upcoming legislation in relation to the storage, transfer and protection of data does the industry needs to be aware of? Why; what does each of them (possibly) mean? How will they impact data centres in New Zealand (and abroad)?
Traditionally, most data centres have been inconspicuous and functional buildings located and concealed usually for reasons of security. As latency and concerns about how best to deliver digital services locally drove Edge forward, is that pattern now being followed by larger data centres to be integrated within local areas and communities? How far can that trend go?
New Zealand’s exports are based on agricultural produce, timber and tourism. What role do digital services currently play in supporting and enabling the current export economy? What further role could they play particularly in trading with markets in Asia?
The importance of cloud services to digital progress in New Zealand is growing year-on-year. The technologies and systems that drive cloud don’t stand still – as the requirements of markets evolve, so do cloud deployment strategies. How will the role and the delivery of cloud change in New Zealand over the next few years?
Data centres have been often described as ‘resource hungry’ and the expectation that most will operate 24/7 across the years they are operational compounds that view. As IT densities climb so the resourcing of the data centre across all requirements commands greater focus. How is this impacting the management of data centres and the ways in which that management is organised?
The dispersion of both population and economic activity across New Zealand creates the need for digital infrastructure to service communities and businesses away from the major metropolitan centres. What role is Edge playing in this, how is it deployed and in what configurations? How is Edge computing likely to evolve across New Zealand?
If projections made currently are accurate, the footprint of data centres in New Zealand will increase significantly, possibly double over the next 5 years. How can this level of growth be planned for and managed not just in terms of infrastructure and resources but also in terms of the perceptions and experience of the data centre industry among key stakeholder groups.
What do I need to bring for registration on event day?
Please bring the registration confirmation email with QR code sent to your email to the registration area in order to get a badge printed to enter the event.
Where can I find my QR code for registration?
Upon successful completion of registration through the W.Media website, your QR code will be sent to your email address.
Can I bring my colleague along? Does he/she need to register?
Cloud and Datacenter professionals and media partners are welcome to attend. All attendees must register on the W.Media event page.