What does the cloud look like on the ground?

Authors: Matthias Auer und Aloysius Widmann
published on 2024/06/15 in Presse am Sonntag

We use the cloud all the time in our everyday lives, often without even realising it. But what exactly does this cloud, in which data is stored and processed, look like? Why and where new data centres are being created. And what bottlenecks there are in the cloud economy.

A launch this year was planned, but it won’t quite work out. It will be another one to one and a half years before the three new data centres of US giant Microsoft around Vienna go into operation. The project, which according to Microsoft Austria boss Hermann Erlach is being realised in Austria for several reasons, is costing around one billion euros: For example, there is plenty of green energy, a secure power supply, political stability and hardly any earthquakes. However, data centres are not only sprouting up in Austria. As of December 2023, there were around 11,000 of them worldwide. And the trend is rising sharply. Because the demand for computing power is growing and growing. And growing. “The challenge is to build up sufficient data centre capacity quickly enough to keep up with the growing demand,” Ben Maynard points out in an interview with “Presse am Sonntag”. The Brit speaks on behalf of the European association of cloud service providers CISPE. In other words, an industry whose growth depends on the computing power available for cloud services also growing.

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Austrian cloud

Alexander Windbichler is not yet 40 years old. But the Carinthian has been an entrepreneur for almost 20 years. Today, Anexia employs around 400 people worldwide. The product range is extensive; to put it simply, Windbichler’s company offers cloud services. When companies have their data managed by companies like Anexia, they not only save themselves the need for their own data centre, which ties up human and financial resources – and also takes up space. They can also use programmes in the cloud that do not have to be installed locally in the company.

Not all cloud service providers operate their own data centres. Anexia does. “We operate our own data centres in Austria, but we also rent space from colocation operators,” says Windbichler in an interview with Presse am Sonntag. The current 70 or so data centres in Austria are operated by different companies. In addition to tech giants such as Microsoft, which offer cloud services as well as operating their own – sometimes huge – data centres, there are also companies such as Anexia. Or companies such as Digital Realty, where Anexia rents space in Austria, for example.

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Data sovereignty

Even though data is transmitted in fibre optic cables at almost the speed of light, Windbichler believes that it does matter where data is located. “Many people underestimate how important data sovereignty is,” says the Carinthian. After all, if data is stored on servers that are located within the European Union but belong to US companies, Europeans are ultimately open to blackmail. Should a US president come up with the idea of imposing sanctions against Europe, for example, the cloud could go offline within a very short space of time if it is based on servers belonging to US companies. And then the data is gone. “You can’t simply expropriate a data centre like a Gazprom storage facility,” Windbichler points out. However, he is by no means advising against storing data on US servers. There must be the option of using data centres of European companies in Europe.

The US dominance in digital infrastructure can also be seen in the figures. With around 5380 data centres, the USA is home to more than ten times as many as the largest EU country, Germany. The US dominance over system rival China is also striking, with the Middle Kingdom having 449 data centres as of March 2024.

Read the full article on Presse am Sonntag.