The Q4 2021 Knight Frank Data Centre Report continues our growing coverage of the Asia Pacific region. Market analysis includes both established data centre hubs such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Sydney, Seoul, and Tokyo; and fast growth markets including Hanoi, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur – to provide the most wide-ranging view of the region.
The momentum of Q3 carried into the fourth quarter, with several major announcements across key markets in Asia Pacific. Total supply (live, phased, and under construction) in APAC increased almost 185MW in Q4, bringing total capacity in the region to over 7,900MW. Take-up was around 120MW, moderating slightly from Q3 but in line with previous quarters. For the whole of 2021, IT capacity across APAC grew by over 1,500MW.
The gigawatt markets of Tokyo and Shanghai added significant capacity in 2021, adding between 300MW to 400MW each, to their respective markets. In Q4, AirTrunk’s TOK1 facility opened in Tokyo, with its first phase up to 60MW. STT also announced its plan for two data centres in Inzai totalling 60MW. In addition, Stack Infrastructure’s has plans for a 36MW campus, and Colt has secured land for two sites in Inzai and Northern Tokyo for 45MW.
The Chinese authorities have announced the setting up of four mega clusters of data centres in the north and west of the country. This was followed by an announcement of a further 10 national data centre clusters as part of a broader strategy to transport data from eastern regions of China to western regions for storage and calculation. On the back of government plans to classify data centres as infrastructure assets for easier access to funding, India also saw several major new investments into data centre platforms, including Hiranani-Yotta and Kotak-Sify.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore lifted its hold on new data centre builds after a two-year moratorium. Under a new pilot program, up to 60MW of capacity will be made available in 2022, to developments of between 10 to 30MW each. As part of the consideration, applicants for new data centre facilities will need to commit to achieving a PUE of below 1.3 and obtain Singapore’s Green Mark for Data Centres-Platinum certification – in addition to adding strategic value for Singapore. We expect this pathfinder approach to serve as a model to other countries looking to find the right balance between their digitalization and sustainability goals.
Growing interest is also seen in emerging APAC markets like Seoul, Osaka, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok.
Hong Kong Market Direction 2022: What You Need to Know in the Year of the Tiger
The emergence of a fifth wave of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, together with continued strict border controls, has seen investors and corporations looking to adopt new strategies to manage the new normal in commercial real estate business operations.
In our Hong Kong Market Direction 2022 report, we highlight six factors we see impacting the future direction of the commercial real estate market in the Year of The Tiger:
ESG Is Too Important to Be Ignored
Bargain Hunting for Premium Office Properties
Developers to Enrich Landbanks in the Northern Metropolis
Automation and Warehouses are Connecting
Healthy Lifestyles to Forge New Demand for Fitness Centers
Growing Needs for Quality Virtual Conferencing and Collaborative Workspaces
What can Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer the built environment in our age of climate emergency? At the heart of Deep Reinforcement Learning is an agent and an environment. Just as we are starting to learn that our actions within our environment have consequences on an immense, planetary scale, innovative AI is learning too – and faster than us.
By using Deep Reinforcement Learning to optimise the energy efficiency of HVAC systems in the built environment, we can minimise the negative impact of our own actions without sacrificing occupant comfort. As businesses all over the world attempt to transition to Net Zero, this technology has a pivotal role to play.
But why is Deep Reinforcement Learning the best way to optimise HVAC performance?
シティ・デベロップメンツ・リミテッド(CDL)のESG戦略は、1995年に確立された企業理念「建設と環境保護」に根ざしています。CDLの価値創造ビジネスモデルは、統合、イノベーション、投資、そしてインパクトという4つの主要な柱を基盤としており、CDLは「脱炭素化」、「デジタル化とイノベーション」、「情報開示とコミュニケーション」という3つの主要な成果目標の達成を目指しています。2017年に策定されたサステナビリティ・ブループリント「CDL Future Value 2030」は、CDLの事業戦略と事業運営全体にわたる明確な戦略目標とESG目標を定めています。.
Asia-Pacific prime office rents rise for first time since pandemic
Knight Frank’s Asia-Pacific Prime Office Rental Index saw a 0.3% quarter-on-quarter increase, the first uptick since Q3 2019, before the start of the pandemic. Overall vacancy remains elevated at 12.8%, but office rents are likely to have bottomed out, thanks to improving business sentiments and a gradual and more sustainable return to workplaces, especially among big tech occupiers taking advantage of lower rents to move into high-quality CBD office spaces.
While conditions remain tentative due to the Omicron variant, we expect rents to continue stabilising into 2022 with more markets in the region reaching an inflexion point in the rental downcycle. As occupiers continually evolve their space strategies on the adoption of hybrid working styles, 2022 will be a year of reset and experimentation. However, this does not mean less demand for office spaces. We expect leasing activity to strengthen into 2022, with demand underpinned by the integration of flexible space solutions and a pivot to quality spaces that emphasises wellness and employee experience.
Overall office gross absorption across the top six cities was at about 33 million sq feet, 10% higher compared to 2020. Pan-India absorption during the year surpassed the annual gross absorption during 2016-2018 by 7%, signalling a strong revival in occupier confidence.