Global (rather than hyper) scale essential to data centre protection

The data centres market is among the fastest growing real estate sub-sectors in the world, driven by increasing levels of technology deployment across the globe and the accompanying need for processing and storing data. According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the total investment in data centres is expected to increase from $ 244.74 billion in 2019 to $ 432.14 billion in 2025. The housing of such vast amounts of data cannot be managed by the current number of data centres and therefore mass construction can be expected worldwide. The construction of these data centres and their ongoing protection is crucial to global growth; fire and security suppliers like Chubb have an important role to play in providing the businesses involved in their development and management with reliable solutions and services.

For many of the biggest players in the data centre market, including those hosting colocation data centres and the international cloud players, partnership with a security provider rarely hinges on providing innovation in the types of products used. Why? Because the design of the data centre, and the needs of customers, calls for the use of specific technologies, and for the formula to be duplicated across data centres worldwide. Therefore, providing security for a data centre is less an issue of developing a product or range of products. Instead it’s about ensuring one has the engineers skilled in the integration and maintenance of specific product ranges, coupled with the global footprint to service and consult on data centre projects in different jurisdictions.

Chubb has both the heritage and the global scale to be a key partner for these data centre customers across the globe, with over 20 years’ experience in the sector and a fire and security business which has stood the test of time for more than 200 years. To meet the growing and worldwide need for data management and the construction of data centres, we have established a global data centre council, ensuring knowledge sharing and best practice on project management for our customers. The data centre council is made up of industry experts in the most developed and emerging regions, including North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific and reflects Chubb’s presence in all these markets.

One example of the need for project management capabilities in providing a consultative data centre solution is Chubb’s work in Asia Pacific, providing regional account management for one of the world’s leading cloud providers. Chubb has been the preferred security partner for this customer since 2019, with the relationship led by the team our team on the ground in Singapore. Not only have we been able to provide end-to-end regional project management through a single contact, allowing for improved communications with customer stakeholders, but the regional infrastructure to support the customer’s projects means we have been well-placed to scale up the relationship and support them as they’ve grown. Our regional account management structure has allowed for consistent bid preparation, opportunity consultations and contract negotiation. It has also provided efficient knowledge transfer across the region, with minimal customer involvement. The Chubb team understands the demands of the sector, is knowledgeable of the different cultures and languages; and has hands-on experience with the solutions in scope.

In conclusion, fire and security in this space has moved on from a simple transactional relationship with a customer, providing products that suit the needs of the individual. It is now essential that fire and security partners can provide the scale, ambition and global presence to move with a sector that is likely to experience exponential growth in the coming years and to match the enormous demands for data worldwide. We look forward to growing with it.