Frankfurt overtakes London as largest data centre cluster

After many forecasts predicting it, a new report from Data CenterPricing.Com (DCP) has confirmed London has lost its crown to Frankfurt.

While its lead may only be marginal, the German city now has the largest data center cluster in Europe, followed by London - the Inner M25, Paris, Amsterdam, and Slough.

DCP's report asserts data centers are set to expand in all of the city clusters surveyed (of which there is 20) with raised floor space projected to increase almost 50 percent across all city clusters over the next four years.

Over this period the data center cluster in Rome will have the highest percentage growth with 60 percent, followed by Amsterdam - Frankfurt both on 58 percent, and Dublin - Geneva both on 57 percent.

As you would expect it's the larger cities in Europe that typically account for the highest amount of 3rd party data center raised floor space, and DCP says this is accelerating as data center providers look to place themselves in population centres as applications are increasingly positioned closer to the end user.

Despite this trend, there is still significant growth in the large established country markets in Europe as well. For example, Slough is now the second largest data center cluster in the UK (after London - the Inner M25) and the fifth largest in Europe with 156,000 square metres of data center raised floor space.

Of the twenty data center hot spots in Europe, five are located in the UK with Cardiff, Manchester, Woking, Slough, and the London - Inner M25 area, and three are in Germany with Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt.

The amount of data center raised floor space and data center customer power (DCCP) and pricing swings significantly between each data center city cluster, with the largest (Frankfurt) having over 277,500 square metres of space, ranging down to 21,000 square metres for the Geneva city cluster.

The same is true for average data center pricing. According to DCP, Zurich and London - the Inner M25 are the most expensive with €1,392 and €1,354 per month per rack respectively, while Prague and Warsaw are the least expensive with €530 and €452 per month per rack respectively.

Despite the positive growth forecast (or perhaps because of it), DCP expects average data center pricing across the 20 city clusters to gradually decline over the next four years, falling by almost 8 percent from the end of 2018 to the end of 2022.