Data Center Rack Market

Market Overview

The global data center rack market size was valued at USD 2.21 billion in 2022. It is estimated to reach USD 4.19 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 7.12% during the forecast period (2023–2031).

A data center rack is a structure intended to hold servers, cables, and other data center components. This steel and electronic framework permits the positioning and coordination of devices within a data center facility. Various industries like IT and telecom, BFSI, manufacturing, and others utilize data racks. Numerous hardware units and services are stacked using individual mounting structures, such as colocation racks. They provide security, ventilation, and system troubleshooting simplicity.

Durable data center cabinets are predominantly intended to house servers of various form factors, including rack-mounted and blade servers. They are also designed to contain telecommunications, networking, cooling, and uninterruptible power supplies. Typically, each rack has slots for connecting electrical, networking, and internet cables. The design and classification of server cabinets in a data center are based on their capacity or number of bays.

Market Dynamics

Global Data Center Rack Market Drivers

Increased Investments in the Development of Hyperscale Data Centers

Significant quantities of structured and unstructured data are produced by expanding the IT infrastructures of various industry verticals. This necessitates the creation of hyperscale data centers for storing and protecting the generated data with high-security services. IBM, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's adoption of cloud-based applications and services generates massive amounts of data. This results in replacing conventional public cloud data centers with hyperscale data centers that concentrate on enhancing their data storage capacity.

Additionally, the increased use of smartphones, social media websites, and over-the-top (OTT) platforms generates large volumes of data, thereby increasing the need for large-scale data centers. Governments worldwide are investing more in developing hyperscale data center infrastructure to meet consumers' and businesses' rising demand for digital services. Similarly, increased adoption of advanced technologies such as IoT, Al, and ML across various industries generates even more data that must be stored in hyperscale data centers. Therefore, investment growth in developing hyperscale data centers fuels the global market.

Growth in Taller, Deeper, and Wider Rack Procurement

The data center rack market has adopted racks of various heights and capacity ranges in the last few years. Moreover, vendors continuously innovate their design specifications to meet the demand for new-age infrastructure. There is an increasing requirement for higher, deeper, and wider infrastructure solutions due to increased server density and server count.

Depending on customer needs, racks are available in heights ranging from around 24U to 55U and even higher. Several vendors in the market offer taller and wider racks between this range. In addition, many data center operators plan to optimize space and improve facility efficiency. This prompts operators to opt for customized taller, wider, and deeper rack solutions per their operational and space requirements, thereby driving market growth.

Global Data Center Rack Market Restraint

Availability of Low-Cost Solutions

The global data center rack market has numerous local vendors offering rack solutions at 50% less cost than others. These racks are mostly used by enterprise data center operators rather than colocation providers since using industry-standard racks plays a vital role in attracting customers to colocate their IT space. The existence of affordable rack solutions may have a negative impact on market revenue to a certain degree.

Global Data Center Rack Market Opportunities

Increasing Deployments of Edge Data Centers

Customer demands for low-latency data require a higher computational ability from data centers and more demand for additional data centers. Since building full-size data centers across various regions is challenging due to location and CAPEX constraints, an increasing number of smaller, edge data centers are being built to cater to demand from a limited geographical area. Edge data centers will establish a decentralized model in which multiple edge data centers are connected to a centralized hyperscale facility.

Furthermore, telecommunication operators are increasingly investing in deploying 5G globally, which will drive the demand for the procurement of edge data centers. The use of these rack-level infrastructure solutions will continue to grow. This is because edge deployments comprising less than ten racks grow in developed countries such as the US, the UK, China, Germany, and Japan. The expansion of these infrastructure solutions among edge data center deployments will involve all of the region's nations. Such factors create opportunities for market growth.

Regional Analysis

Based on region, the global data center rack market is bifurcated into North America, Western Europe, Nordic, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.

North America Dominates the Global Market

North America is the most significant shareholder in the global data center rack market share and is anticipated to exhibit a CAGR of 3.54% over the forecast period. The North American data center rack market leads the data center industry with the early adoption of innovative infrastructure and investments from colocation service providers, hyperscale data center operators, enterprises, and government agencies. The region is an incumbent for new technological innovation for infrastructure in the data center arena. The region has also actively constructed hyperscale facilities with a power capacity of over 20 MW. The major contributors to market growth in North America are Facebook, Google, Equinix, Digital Realty, Compass Datacenters, Cologix, Vantage Data Centers, NTT Global Data Centers, QTS Realty Trust, CoreSite Realty, CyrusOne, and Switch. The region is also an early adopter of big data, cloud computing, and IoT technologies.

Additionally, businesses in this region are currently constructing high-performance computing data centers to advance the development of IoT, AI, and connected reality. The demand for high-end infrastructure also translates to increased demand for innovative rack technologies. This demand has also led to growth in the adoption of higher rack units in some data centers.

Asia-Pacific is estimated to exhibit a CAGR of 6.74% over the forecast period. The surging number of internet users, increased use of social media, smartphone penetration, adoption of public cloud and hybrid cloud services, and the requirement for enterprises to migrate from server room conditions to data centers are major drivers in the data center rack market in Asia-Pacific. There are countries in Asia-Pacific, such as India and Indonesia, with high population growth, with high demand for data storage. However, there are not enough data centers. These countries will see significant growth in data center investment during the forecast period to cater to this demand. The upcoming 5G technology installations in various countries will also increase the region's demand for edge data centers.

Western Europe is an established market for data centers. Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), coming into effect in 2018, affected the data center market in Western Europe, causing customers to shift their data to cloud-based services for data localization, resulting in more data center projects. After COVID-19, remote working increased the demand for cloud-based services and remote access and monitoring of data due to skyrocketing data generation. The rising demand for technologies such as big data and digitalization is also raising server requirements, which will aid the growth of racks in the market.

In Central and Eastern Europe, data center development primarily focuses on Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Serbia. These markets have grown significantly in the past decade. However, investments in data centers in nations other than the aforementioned ones are limited. The market is growing in Bulgaria, Latvia, and Ukraine, allowing colocation service providers to start investing.

Latin America witnessed considerable growth in the construction of data centers over the last two years. Increasing demand for data center services, along with improvements in fiber connectivity and power dependability, is pushing Latin American service providers to build their data centers. Industries such as finance, agriculture, and e-commerce increasingly incorporate big data and IoT applications in their operations, leading to a rise in demand for data centers, thereby driving market growth.

In the Middle East, the data center rack market share is still nascent. However, many countries are moving away from oil and gas as the primary source of foreign investment and domestic development and adopting digital technology to encourage foreign capital. Over the next few years, increasing adoption of cloud-based services, big data, IoT technologies, and automation will be a predominant driver for data center development in the Middle East.

Segmental Analysis

The global data center rack market is bifurcated into rack size, product, and end-user.

Based on rack size, the global market is segmented into below 42U, 42U, 45U−47U, 48U, and other units. 

The 45U−47U segment is the largest contributor to the market and is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.57% over the forecast period. Racks of 45U provide 3U of additional space that can facilitate the adoption of rack-level UPS, typically of 2U configuration. Wider/deeper 45U racks facilitate better cable management. Data center operators that require equipment of additional infrastructure at the rack level prefer 45U and 47U racks, which have the space to eliminate hotspots inside racks. Vendors offer 45U racks with a width of 482.6 mm and 600 mm.

In addition, it is worth noting that the rack enclosures possess a considerable depth of up to 1,200 mm. These particular goods exhibit a notable load capability, withstanding around 1,000 kg. 45U racks with high ceilings and efficient cooling management systems are installed in data centers. The adoption rate of these racks is likely to increase during the forecast period, generating higher market revenue.

Racks of size 42U are the most used industry-standard rack architecture across traditional brick-and-mortar and modular data centers. Multiple proven data center rack designs include standardized data center rack architecture with raised flooring. However, this will change as enterprises and data center service providers opt for taller racks.

Based on the product, the global market is segmented into racks enclosures and cabinets and accessories. 

The racks enclosures and cabinets segment is the highest contributor to the market and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.48% over the forecast period. Racks are manufactured and offered as open-frame rack infrastructure and rack cabinets or enclosures. Rack cabinets include wall-mount cabinets, seismic cabinets, and cabinets with integrated cooling. The cost of seismic and cooling cabinets with minimum accessories will be over USD 2,000, while wall-mounted racks will cost lower depending on size. Most data center operators procure data center racks with all required accessories at one installation. In addition, data center operators have started adopting racks of different heights in their data centers. For instance, DC Blox has adopted cabinets in its data centers from 42U to 50U. Equinix offers enclosures between the range of 45U to 52U in its data centers, which are installed with flexible height configurations.

Accessories pertaining to racks hold comparable significance, albeit relatively less important than other equipment. These accessories help to keep the racks organized, provide a pleasant system experience, and streamline operations. These accessories include cables, rail kits, doors, fans, rack adapters, rack drawers, and cable management bars. Accessories for racks are equally important, less important than any other equipment. These accessories help to keep the racks organized, provide a pleasant system experience, and streamline operations. These accessories include cables, rail kits, doors, fans, rack adapters, rack drawers, and cable management bars.

Based on end-users, the global market is bifurcated into colocation data centers and enterprise data centers. 

The colocation data centers segment dominates the global market and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.20% during the forecast period. Colocation data centers dominated the data center market, as over 340 colocation projects were operational in the market. 3Data, Aligned Data Center, Ascenty, AtHub, Colt DCS, Compass Data Centers, COPT Data Center Solutions, CoreSite Realty, CyrusOne, Digital Realty, Equinix, GDS Holdings, Interxion (Digital Realty, NTT Global Data Centers, QTS Realty Trust, Switch, and Vantage Data Centers are the major operators for colocation development in the market. Colocation facilities can adopt anything between a few hundred and over 5,000 racks. These providers charge around USD 1,000 per month for retail colocation space, which varies based on factors such as bandwidth, rack capacity, and power.

Enterprise data centers witnessed significant growth with the addition of around 52 projects from different operators across the globe. The development of greenfield data centers by enterprises is moving towards modular deployments, which include prefabricated containment systems or containerized data center facilities. Vendors are partnering with IT infrastructure providers to expand their offerings to all-in-one package plug-and-play solutions. In addition, educational institutions, BFSI firms, government agencies, and healthcare providers are constructing their own data centers close to their business operations or across regional regions.

Recent Developments

• April 2023- IBM introduced new single frame and rack mount configurations of IBM z16 and IBM LinuxONE 4 today, expanding their applicability in a wider spectrum of data center environments.
• May 2023- Legrand, the world leader in electrical and digital building infrastructures, introduced the next generation of intelligent rack PDUs. Combining the finest software and hardware technology from previous generations of Raritan and Server Technology rack PDUs with innovative new features, they provide Legrand's customers with industry-leading visibility, best-in-class hardware, and security.