Both Polish and international companies are reporting a growing demand for modern data centres. While the availability of suitable development land in established Western European markets is shrinking, Poland still has a large pool of excellent and affordable sites meeting data centre requirements.

​Given that the global tech giants are primarily headquartered outside Europe, analysing the recent trends in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can help to identify which locations are proving attractive for data centre operations. Cushman & Wakefield’s latest findings confirm that the largest investment activity continues in mature tech and financial hubs in Western Europe. A key driver for activity in this group of locations is the proximity to the high economic activity of these increasingly digitised markets, writes Dimitris Vlachopoulos, Partner, Head of Portfolio & Location Strategy, EMEA for Cushman & Wakefield.

Data centres remain one of the fastest growing real estate segments as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated favourable secular trends, but developers and investors looking for high yields and promising stable cash flows face specific risks. Scope Ratings says managing the risks, particularly those related to energy and the environment, has become particularly challenging today.

Economic progress inevitably brings increased demand for electric energy. In a historical context, coal-fuelled growth in the 19th century, oil facilitated the expansion of the global economy in the 20th century and data is stoking today’s economic progress. Data centres are the most rapidly growing segment of real estate and operating them requires an enormous amount of energy. Janusz Gutowski, CEO AXI IMMO Services at the AXI IMMO Group highlights the key issues around data centres’ demand for energy and explains what the alternative sources of energy for the sector are. 

The data centre market in Poland is worth over PLN 2 billion, according to a PMR report. The number of local companies that are deciding to outsource IT services and implement cloud solutions is growing. This trend means that international technology giants and companies from the CEE region are looking to establish a presence in Poland. In response to their needs, 7R, as part of its expansion strategy, has decided to expand its offer to include data processing centers.

Warsaw is one of the top ten cities for data centre development in the category of power cost and environmental risk, reveals a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. In addition to Warsaw, the top ten markets for data centres by industrial power cost include Montreal, Reykjavik, Johannesburg, Portland, Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Seattle, with some focusing on the use of renewables, thereby offering the lowest costs in the long term.

Iceland, Sweden and Norway show top potential for hyperscale and cloud-scale data centre investment, followed closely by Denmark and the Netherlands according to research from Savills. The CEE region is also becoming more important in strategic plans for key players, with Poland having the potential of being in its heart.

Data centres are becoming an important segment of commercial real estate and the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be an impulse for its accelerated growth. There are currently 115 data centres in Poland, of which the highest number is located in Warsaw (35), Katowice and Kraków (13 each). Axi Immo anticipates the market to develop further, especially following the decision by IT giants Google and Microsoft to add Warsaw to their list of global cloud regions, with a pledged investment of $2 billion and $1 billion respectively over the coming years. Axi Immo experts have prepared a report on the Polish data centre market, its requirements and specific features.

There was a monumental €26 billion (£23.5 billion) investment into the European data centre sector for the first half of 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, according to a report by Knight Frank in partnership with DC Byte. This is over four times the $5 billion annual average figure and a colossal increase on last year’s $2 billion investment volumes. Take-up in H1 2020 was also 50% higher year-on-year at 282MW.

New research from Cushman & Wakefield has identified Berlin, Reykjavik, Oslo, Warsaw, Zurich, Milan, Vienna, Madrid and Prague as emerging hotspots for data centre development in Europe. The European data centre market has long been dominated by the ‘FLAP-D’ markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin, cities with their own deep business and financial sectors to serve. While these markets are still critical to the data centre ecosystem as entry points - and with over 500 MW of construction underway among them - interest in the FLAP-D markets is now competing with physical limitations including a lack of energy to power the centres, limited stock and a need to be closer to regional users.