Data Center Fire Detection and Suppression Market

Market Overview

The global data center fire detection and suppression market size was valued at USD 841.49 million in 2022. It is estimated to reach USD 1,597.20 million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 7.38% during the forecast period (2023–2031).

Data centers are designed and developed as mission-critical facilities to process the data generated by consumers and business end-users. Fiber optic cables connected to satellites or telecommunication broadband connectivity connect data centers to customers and companies. They comprise IT infrastructure such as servers, storage, and network infrastructure connected to process and store user data. Data centers also comprise power and cooling infrastructure to offer end-users highly available, reliable, and scalable services. Building data centers requires thousands to billions of dollars, depending on location, size, and capacity.

Fire detection and suppression systems are designed and installed in data centers to combat a fire breakout across the facility data floor area, technical spaces, and support plant. Recently, fire-related incidents have resulted in data center outages leading to downtime, which has led to increased investments in these systems in data centers. Data center operators are adopting fire suppression systems to offer maximum protection to the facility. In a data center, fire protection can be distinguished by rack, room, and building levels. The National Fire Protection Association has defined some standards for data center operators worldwide. These standards help a variety of facilities with different designs to gain protection for their systems from the threat of a fire.

Highlights

• Fire suppression dominates the fire safety systems segment
• Technical space/room level dominates the deployment locations segment
• North America is the highest shareholder in the global market

Market Dynamics

Global Data Center Fire Detection and Suppression Market Drivers:

Rise in Fire Breakouts due to Equipment Failure

The rising fire incidences at data center facilities worldwide have increased the need to install highly sensitive smoke detection systems and quick-fire suppression systems to stop fire breakouts and protect the IT infrastructure. For instance, in November 2020, Global Switch's Sydney data center experienced a power outage due to a false alarm that tripped down the fire suppression and detection systems deployed in the data center.

In order to avoid such situations, data center operators must be focused on installing the right fire suppression and detection system depending on the facility's requirements. Several vendors offering fire and safety systems are also continuously innovating their products to reduce the chances of equipment failure. The operators can easily operate the fire systems remotely. As the construction of hyperscale data centers rises, the industry demands more technologically advanced fire suppression and detection systems, driving the market growth.

Growing Rack Power Density

The growing rack power density has resulted in innovative and flexible facility designs, incorporating rack-level UPS solutions and diverse electricity feeds for racks. Many large and mega data centers have power infrastructure supporting a rack density of up to 50 kW. This installation will continue to grow among new data center projects and increase the demand for power infrastructure solutions during the forecast period.

On average, the AI workload considerably needs more energy than the current 7 kW average per rack power density in many data centers. Some AI applications use more than 30 kW per rack, increasing rack power density. Higher rack power density facilities need advanced heat and smoke-detecting equipment and a quick-fire suppression system to detect fire or smoke in its initial phase to avoid damage. This, in turn, has resulted in the installation of redundant fire and safety solutions likely to fuel market growth.

Global Data Center Fire Detection and Suppression Market Restraint:

Smoke Detection System Challenges

Smoke detection has become difficult, mainly for spot smoke detectors to identify smoke and alert the fire suppression system when mounted on ceilings to avoid an outage or serious service disruption. This is because most data centers direct large volumes of air to cool IT infrastructure, and spot detectors wait for the smoke to accumulate in their sensing chamber. The initial stage of fire smoke has very little buoyancy because of a lack of heat. This smoke combines with the airflow from the cooling system, which dilutes the smoke intensity and does not reach the ceiling.

Furthermore, structural barriers such as HVAC ducts and fully loaded cable trays prevent smoke from reaching the ceiling-mounted smoke detection system. In such cases, the detection of smoke has become a major issue. Therefore, data center operators are now adopting codes and standards to protect IT infrastructure and other valuable assets. Such factors restrict market expansion.

Global Data Center Fire Detection and Suppression Market Opportunities:

Rising Demand for Edge Data Centers

It has been noted that the idea of edge computing is gaining popularity in the market due to the rising utilization of connected devices by organizations and consumers. This, in turn, has propelled the need for high bandwidth internet in many rural areas, thereby driving the need for data centers to process the information on par with major cities.

The rising popularity of streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, online gaming platforms, IoT, and the deployment of 5G networks, will boost the demand for micro edge data centers. Edge data center providers such as EdgeMicro, Vapor IO, and EdgePoint Systems are attracting more customers toward micro edge data centers. In addition, existing providers, such as EdgeMicro, American Tower, VXchnge, Vapor IO, and EdgeConneX, are also expanding their data center presence across multiple edge markets. The increase in investments in micro-edge data centers will create an opportunity for the fire detection and suppression systems market.

Regional Analysis

North America Dominates the Global Market

Based on region, the global data center fire detection and suppression market is bifurcated into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.

North America is the most significant global data center fire detection and suppression market shareholder and is anticipated to exhibit a CAGR of 6.36% during the forecast period. Fiber optic cables connected to satellites or telecommunication broadband connectivity connect data centers to customers and companies. The region is a key driver and acts as an incumbent for any new technological innovation in the data center arena. The major contributors to market growth in North America are Facebook, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Equinix, Digital Realty, Compass Datacenters, Cologix, Vantage Data Centers, NTT Global Data Centers, QTS Realty Trust, CoreSite Realty, CyrusOne, and Switch. Further, the US is the leading nation in the North American region. The growing demand for data centers across major businesses has also boosted the demand for fire suppression systems.

Asia-Pacific is estimated to exhibit a CAGR of 8.93% over the forecast period. The growing number of internet users, elevated smartphone penetration, adoption of public cloud and hybrid cloud services, increased use of social media, and the requirement for businesses to transition from server room settings to data centers are major drivers in Asia-Pacific's data center market. The data center market in Asia-Pacific is witnessing steady growth with continued investments from hyperscale and cloud service providers like AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Alibaba. In each country, local colocation providers also expand their presence by constructing additional data centers, propelling the market. In addition, there are not enough data centers in some of the Asia-Pacific region's fast-growing nations, such as India and Indonesia, where there is a huge need for data storage. These countries will see significant growth in data center investments within the forecast period to cater to this demand. The upcoming 5G technology installations in various countries will also increase demand for data centers in technology-driven countries in the region.

The European region is divided into Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and Nordics. In Western Europe, significant growth in data center demand has been noted in secondary markets such as Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Switzerland. Colocation, cloud, telecommunication, and internet service providers are working on numerous initiatives in these areas. GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) affected the data center market in Western Europe, causing customers to shift their data to cloud-based services for data localization and resulting in more data center projects.

In addition, data center development in Central and Eastern Europe primarily focuses on Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Serbia. These markets have grown significantly in the past decade. Datacenter investments in countries other than these are low. The market is growing in Bulgaria, Latvia, and Ukraine, allowing colocation service providers to start investing. The Nordics is a favorable location for data center investments by hyperscale data center operators, colocation providers, and cryptocurrency data center operators. Further, the Nordic region is an attractive location for data center investments due to the availability of renewable energy with lower electricity prices.

The Latin American region has witnessed considerable growth in the construction of data centers over the past few years. The development of data centers in Latin America is being pushed for several reasons, including the expansion of robust fiber connectivity, the dependability of the power supply, and the high demand for data center services from various businesses. The region witnessed investment in 15 data center projects in 2020, of which seven became operational in 2020 itself, and the rest should commence operations by Q2 2021. The prominent data center operators in the region in 2020 are Ascenty (part of Digital Realty), Scala Data Centers, Nabiax, Millicom-TIGO, and Equinix. Cloud computing will play an important role for colocation providers adding connectivity to cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM.

Segmental Analysis

The global data center fire detection and suppression market is segmented by fire safety systems and deployment locations.

Based on fire safety systems, the global data center fire detection and suppression market is bifurcated into fire detection and fire suppression systems. 

The fire suppression systems segment dominates the global market and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 7.45% over the forecast period. The most basic fire suppression is the wet pipe sprinkler system. In this type of system, pipes are always filled with water and have the potential for false discharge and water leaks or pipe failure. Therefore, this system is usually not a preferred approach in data centers. Furthermore, such incidences can damage the infrastructure and cause service disruption. Thus, to overcome these issues, welded pipe systems are preferred, although mechanical pipe connections are still identified in many older facilities. Data center operators now prefer two water-based fire suppression methods –single and double interlock systems.

Additionally, the increase in data center outages due to fire-based incidents has increased the importance of procuring fire-based suppression systems by operator's data centers. The market will continue to grow through the development of data center facilities worldwide. The construction of hyperscale facilities will also act as a strong boost for the market, with core and shell development involved in installing these systems during the project's initial construction phase.

Fire detection systems are critical components of fire and safety systems installed in data center facilities. These detectors consist of sensors that detect smoke density and trigger the fire alarm when the intensity of the smoke goes beyond a threshold limit. There are numerous smoke detection approaches available for use within data centers to provide initial notification of the fire. The smoke detection strategies typically include spot-type smoke detection, air-aspirating smoke detection, or a combination of both approaches. The most commonly adopted smoke detection strategy by data center operators is spot-type smoke detection, which is simple and inexpensive.

Based on deployment locations, the global data center fire detection and suppression market is segmented into technical space/room level and other space/building level. 

The technical space/room level segment owns the highest market share and is estimated to exhibit a CAGR of 7.61% during the forecast period. Room-level fire protection mostly includes server rooms and data halls. It can either be a data center or an on-premise data center facility. For room-level protection, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has produced several standard rules and regulations. The NFPA 75 is the standard for protecting cables, Computer equipment, and other items against fire. This standard covers the basic requirements for protecting IT infrastructure and areas from fire damage or its associated effects, such as smoke, corrosion, and heat. In addition, according to the revised version of the standard, data center operators must consider the impact on the use of containment cooling. Therefore, sprinkler systems need to be redesigned in such a way that they cover all areas of contained aisles.

Other space/building-level fire protection is the first level of protection for the data center. All areas, excluding the actual IT space, are considered in this fire safety category, including the control room, office, and support plant area. The main motive is to protect the building, its infrastructure, and its employees. In most cases, fire sprinklers and handheld extinguishers are installed in the building. According to the building safety code, one fire extinguisher should be installed in every 3,000 square feet of area. Data center operators also install passive fire protection in other areas, including fire-rated floor assemblies, firewalls, and doors, to delay the fire spread in the facility.

Recent Developments

• April 2022- Johnson Controls, a globally renowned provider of intelligent, healthy, and sustainable building solutions, announced the purchase of Xcell Misting Ltd. This expert fire protection co-designs and implements cutting-edge fire suppression and detection systems.

• November 2022- Sdiptech AB (publ) acquired Patol Ltd. and Linesense Fire Detection Ltd. shares. Both firms specialize in fire protection products and systems.