Capacity Media’s 15th annual International Telecoms Week 2022 (#ITW2022) event attracted some of the biggest players in the edge data center space. One of the key themes to emerge from ITW in National Harbor, Maryland, is the continued necessity of edge computing and how the telecommunications industry will leverage it to enable everything from 5G to the Metaverse.
Edge enablement was the topic of “Collaboration at the Edge,” a panel discussion with thought leaders who provided insight into what providers can do to improve their edge business offerings. One of those leaders was Prime’s very own Jeff Barber, Partner and EVP of Business Development.
Keep reading for top highlights from this edge-focused discussion.
Hyperscale Demand Will Fuel The Edge
These are just two of several questions the panelists sought to answer: Who is having the most influence in the development of this space, and what is the impact of new partnerships? As Prime’s EVP of Business Development Jeff Barber noted, hyperscalers will continue to grow the definition of the edge.
“Certain workloads do not fit in the cloud. Hyperscalers will continue to grow their definition of edge to capture more customers; there are data sovereignty concerns, data security concerns, that’s what they are trying to address.” – Jeff Barber, Prime Data Centers.
Barber added that hyperscalers, including all the major cloud providers, along with large social media companies and content providers, will consider their edge to be slightly different. Barber predicts that very large players will be laying their own fiber and enabling dedicated networks to ensure no jitter and the lowest latency possible. Those players will have larger data centers on their networks and will become like a carrier, with a lot of processing and rendering at the edge.
The Edge is About the End of Latency
As panelists noted, hyperscalers and large enterprises continue moving away from a centralized model and toward moving workloads closer to where they are utilized and consumed. The conversation then turned to scale and speed. Platforms in areas such as financial services, healthcare, and gaming require microsecond interactions, so they are as close to real-time as possible. The widely used and increasingly popular app ‘TikTok’ illustrates the sheer volume required for other types of platforms. This is fueling continued and significant investment in the edge space. According to Valuates Reports, the edge economy will reach $56 billion in just a few years.
Barber says major cloud providers are now beginning to recognize the need for localized compute and storage. He added it’s why those companies may be seen as aggressive with predicted investments. Hyperscalers providing cloud services “simply cannot have relational databases going back to a location 100 miles away,” states Barber. All of this will fuel digital infrastructure investments that we have not seen.
It is evident for Prime Data Centers with its first major project outside of California in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, where Prime will develop a 750,000-square-foot, 150MW campus. This expansion into the Midwest highlights Prime’s strategy to develop data centers across the world’s most sought-after markets. More news to come on that front with an expansion into an overseas market expected later this quarter. For details on what is in the works for Prime Data Centers, view Barber’s interview from ITW’s show floor, watch here. To keep up to date on all of our ongoing projects, click here.
