China IDC Market Size, Growth Trends, and Future Development Directions

Globally, the data‑center market has maintained a steady ~10% annual growth, reaching approximately US$515 billion in 2018 (excluding cloud‑service revenue) and is dominated by the internet, cloud computing, and financial sectors.

The hosted‑market share is concentrated in the Asia‑Pacific (40%) and North America (34%), with Europe, the Middle East, Africa (22%) and Latin America (4%) following.

China’s IDC market outpaces the global average, achieving a 2018 size of 122.8 billion CNY (≈US$18 billion) and a 29.8% YoY growth, driven by rapid internet expansion, strong policy support, technology upgrades, innovative business models, and a large supply‑demand gap as the sector remains in an early stage.

Geographically, data‑center deployment in China is heavily concentrated in eastern coastal core cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and surrounding areas—where high‑frequency “hot data” processing demand is greatest, while the central and western regions host fewer facilities focused on lower‑priority “cold data.”

Current development trends point to three pillars: large‑scale data‑centers clustered in cloud‑core regions, extensive edge‑computing deployments for distributed workloads, and ultra‑large facilities positioned remotely to lower costs and handle cold data.

Large‑scale data‑centers continue to expand, with IDC companies reporting an average 24% annual revenue increase and over 40% growth in capital expenditures, most of which funds new construction and equipment; these facilities are expected to command more than half of global server, storage, and traffic volumes.

China’s data‑center strategy focuses on: (1) medium‑to‑large centers serving cloud computing and high‑latency “hot data” workloads; (2) ultra‑large centers deployed remotely to reduce costs and process “cold data”; (3) edge‑computing centers delivering ultra‑low latency, high real‑time performance, strong security, and locality.

In 2018, China’s total rack count reached roughly 2.1 million (≈25% YoY growth), with large‑scale racks accounting for 1.15 million (+39%) and mid‑scale racks 0.95 million (+14%).

Globally, leading cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Alibaba operate data‑centers in over 55 regions, averaging 22 sites per company, with the largest share in North America (≈40%), followed by Asia‑Pacific (≈32%) and Western Europe (≈19%).

The article concludes with source attribution and a promotional notice for related architecture‑technology e‑books.