Executive Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the global economy upside down, but at the same time, put Internet infrastructure squarely in the spotlight. Lockdowns of entire populations have caused a surge in remote working, streaming content consumption and online shopping. Internet infrastructure has been a primary beneficiary of this environment and the APAC region has unique dynamics that make it a distinct possibility it could benefit to an even greater extent when compared to the more established markets around the world.
Japan continues to be at the centre of the sector’s growth trajectory. The Olympic Games were cancelled due to the pandemic, but the infrastructure capacity that was built out to support it has been absorbed very quickly. The conditions are there for two massive-scaling events in Japan and it is no coincidence that activity in the Tokyo and Osaka markets continues to accelerate unabated.
Amid the pandemic, hyperscale cloud is poised to hit a second wave of growth as they start to land in the emerging tier of markets across the region. And in mature markets, we are soon going to be seeing early generation edge deployments. Equinix acquired Packet with a bare metal compute platform it can scale globally and AWS Outposts is able to do similar things, albeit in a different fashion and locked in to a different toolset.
This report examines the key themes and developments that transpired in the APAC infrastructure services market over the first quarter of the year. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be front and centre, but over the long-term it is going to accelerate trends already in motion and lead to more growth, particularly in the hyperscale ecosystem.
