Designing for Hyperscale vs Colocation: Irish Data Centre Guide

What is a Hyperscale Data Centre?

The term hyperscale describes a data centre of extraordinary scale — typically defined as a single facility housing more than 10MW of installed IT load, operated by or built for a single cloud platform or large-scale internet company. The defining characteristic is not simply size but the architectural philosophy: hyperscale facilities are designed as standardised, repeatable modules that can be deployed rapidly across geographies to support global cloud service delivery.

Globally, the hyperscale market is dominated by a small number of operators: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance. Each maintains its own proprietary design standards, construction methodologies and operational playbooks that differ significantly from the colocation and enterprise data centre sector. A hyperscale campus may consist of multiple individual buildings, each with 20–100MW of IT load, served by a shared electrical substation and cooling water infrastructure on a campus of 50–200 acres.

Global hyperscale capacity has grown from approximately 250 facilities in 2015 to more than 1,000 in 2025, representing over 70% of all new data centre construction. Ireland has become one of the world's most concentrated hyperscale markets relative to national population and land area — a consequence of EU headquarters locations for US technology companies, favourable corporation tax policy, and access to trans-Atlantic subsea cable infrastructure.

The Irish Hyperscale Landscape in Detail

Ireland's hyperscale sector is concentrated in and around the Greater Dublin Area, with the largest individual campuses among the largest in the world:

• Meta (Facebook) — Clonee, County Meath: Meta's Clonee campus is one of the largest data centre campuses in the world, with operational capacity approaching 400MW of IT load across multiple purpose-built buildings. The campus has expanded in multiple phases since 2011 and continues to grow. Meta's EU data centre operations for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are anchored here.
• Google — Grange Castle, Dublin 22: Google operates one of its largest European data centre campuses at Grange Castle Business Park on Dublin's western edge, with IT loads estimated above 100MW and continued expansion. Google has also operated facilities at Killiney and has announced additional Dublin-area capacity.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — multiple Dublin sites: AWS operates EU West 1 (eu-west-1) from Dublin, one of the company's earliest international regions, first launched in 2007. AWS data centre facilities are distributed across the Dublin area in a multi-building campus model with total capacity exceeding 100MW.
• Microsoft Azure — Dublin and Grange Castle: Microsoft has operated Azure infrastructure in Dublin since the early 2010s and has substantially expanded capacity at Grange Castle and other Dublin locations. Ireland is the primary location for Microsoft's Azure Ireland (Ireland North and West Regions) cloud infrastructure serving EU customers.
• Apple — Athenry, County Galway: Apple's planned 166MW data centre at Athenry became one of Ireland's most controversial planning cases, with years of legal challenges eventually resolved in Apple's favour in 2021. The facility is now under construction and represents a shift of hyperscale development toward the west of Ireland.

Total Irish data centre capacity — combining hyperscale, wholesale colo and retail colo — exceeded 800MW of IT load in 2024 per SIRO and EirGrid estimates, with further expansion planned. Data centres now represent approximately 18% of total Irish electricity consumption, a figure that has attracted intense political and regulatory attention.

The DCCAE Moratorium and Its Design Implications

In February 2022, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DCCAE) announced that EirGrid and ESB Networks would not process new applications for large-scale data centre grid connections in the Greater Dublin Area until 2028. This was a direct response to grid capacity constraints: Dublin's electricity demand was already exceeding safe operating margins during peak periods, and the combination of data centre growth and electrification of heat and transport threatened grid stability.

The moratorium has created significant design and commercial implications for the Irish data centre sector:

• New hyperscale and large-scale colo development is being directed to Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, where EirGrid has identified available grid connection capacity on the 110kV and 220kV networks.
• The IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Authority) has published alternative site lists for data centre development outside Dublin, with sites pre-assessed for planning, environmental, grid and water availability.
• EirGrid's Grid Connection Policy now requires data centres above 10MW to provide detailed demand flexibility commitments — the ability to reduce load on grid operator request — as a condition of connection approval.
• Facilities with on-site generation (combined heat and power, large-scale battery storage, or hydrogen fuel cells) are receiving preferential treatment in the connection queue.
• EirGrid's Generation Capacity Statement to 2035 forecasts data centre demand doubling again from 2024 levels, requiring substantial new generation capacity — primarily offshore wind — to be connected to the Irish grid.

Colocation Types in Ireland: Retail, Wholesale and Campus

Colocation data centres — facilities where multiple tenants rent infrastructure from a single operator — exist on a spectrum from very small to very large. Understanding where on this spectrum a project falls determines the entire design approach.

Retail Colocation

Retail colo is the model where individual tenants rent rack space (per unit, half-rack or full rack), with the operator providing shared power, cooling, physical security and connectivity infrastructure. Power is typically metered at the cabinet level and charged per kWh consumed. Tenants range from single racks (1–2kW) to a few racks (10–20kW total). Retail colo is appropriate for Irish SMEs, startups, and organisations with limited on-premises IT requirements.

Wholesale Colocation

Wholesale colo provides tenants with a dedicated, locked caged suite or entire data hall, typically with power commitments of 250kW to 5MW. The tenant is responsible for fitting out the interior of their suite (racks, cooling distribution, cabling) while the operator provides power to the suite boundary and shared cooling plant. Wholesale colo is appropriate for Irish financial institutions, government bodies and large enterprises requiring dedicated infrastructure at colo scale.

Campus-Style Colocation

Campus colo provides entire buildings or dedicated buildings on a shared campus, with power commitments typically above 5MW. Equinix and Digital Realty's largest Dublin facilities operate on this model, with multiple buildings each serving different tenants or dedicated to single large wholesale tenants. The design boundary between campus colo and hyperscale build-to-suit becomes blurred at this scale.

Irish Colocation Operator Landscape

Ireland's colocation market is served by a range of operators across the scale spectrum:

• Equinix: The world's largest colo operator by revenue has six facilities in Dublin — DUB1 through DUB6 — providing retail and wholesale colo and interconnection services. Equinix Dublin is the primary Internet Exchange point for Ireland, hosting the INEX (Internet Neutral Exchange) and providing access to more than 500 network providers. Equinix's carrier-neutral model and interconnection density make it the default location for Irish and international businesses requiring diverse connectivity.
• Digital Realty: Digital Realty operates the former Interxion portfolio in Dublin (DUB10–DUB15), providing wholesale and retail colo across multiple Dublin campuses. Digital Realty's facilities are located in Citywest, Clonshaugh and other Dublin suburban locations.
• NTT Global Data Centres: NTT operates a large campus in Dublin providing colocation services to enterprise and financial sector clients.
• CyrusOne / Compass Datacenters: Both operators have invested in Irish data centre development following the Dublin moratorium, targeting new campus development in regional Irish cities.
• GridBeyond: GridBeyond provides data centre infrastructure services with a focus on demand flexibility and grid-interactive operation — a growing priority in the Irish market given grid constraints.

Hyperscale vs Colocation: The 14-Parameter Comparison

Hyperscale Design Specifics for ELV/ICT Designers

Working on a hyperscale data centre project presents a fundamentally different design challenge from traditional data centre or commercial building ELV work. The key characteristics that define hyperscale ELV design scope:

Pod and Module Architecture

Hyperscale facilities are designed as repetitive pods or modules — typically 1–4MW IT load per pod — that are replicated throughout the building. Once the first pod is designed and commissioned, subsequent pods are essentially copied with minor variations. This creates a very different design process: enormous upfront effort to create the master pod design, then efficient replication. ELV designers working on hyperscale projects must create a highly detailed single-pod ELV specification and then create a pod multiplication schedule showing how that design repeats across the facility.

Stripped-Down ELV Scope

Hyperscale operators intentionally minimise ELV complexity. A hyperscale data centre may have a far simpler access control system than a comparably sized office building — because the single-tenant model means far fewer people access the facility and zone complexity is unnecessary. Security is perimeter-focused and biometric-heavy rather than zone-rich. Fire detection is invariably VESDA aspirating detection (no conventional point detectors in the data hall), and public address systems are minimal. This means a lower ELV cost per square metre than colo, but a very different specification.

Proprietary Fire Detection and Suppression

Each major hyperscale operator has a proprietary fire detection and suppression specification that may differ from IS 3218 defaults. Designers must understand the specific operator's requirements and negotiate with the Irish statutory authority (the local fire officer and ETCI) where proprietary standards diverge from Irish requirements.

Bulk Pricing Effects on ELV Scope

Hyperscale operators purchase ELV systems in bulk globally. The operator may specify a preferred VESDA system, preferred CCTV platform, preferred access control platform and preferred cable type — and may supply these directly to the main contractor. The ELV designer's scope in this model may shift from full specification to integration and installation design only.

Colocation Design Specifics for ELV/ICT Designers

Colocation data centres present a richer and more complex ELV design challenge than hyperscale, because the multi-tenant model introduces complexity at every system level:

Multi-Tenant Security Zone Architecture

A colo facility must implement a layered physical security architecture that allows each tenant to enter only their own space while maintaining shared security management. A typical Irish colocation security zone hierarchy runs: public entrance → security reception and mantrap → shared lobby → individual cage or suite doors → cabinet locks. Each layer uses different credential types, with the operator controlling outer layers and tenants potentially controlling their own suite level via separate access control partitions.

Per-Tenant Energy Metering

Colocation billing is typically based on actual kWh consumed per tenant. This requires individual energy meters at each tenant cabinet or circuit — either within operator-supplied PDUs (with embedded metering) or via separate submetering devices. The ELV designer must design the metering architecture to enable accurate per-tenant billing and provide data feeds to the operator's DCIM and billing systems.

Meet-Me-Room (MMR) Design for Carrier Neutrality

The Meet-Me-Room is the facility's telecommunications nerve centre — the space where carrier networks interconnect with each other and with tenant cross-connects. The MMR design is critical for carrier-neutral colocation: it must accommodate diverse cable types, provide secure access for carrier personnel while maintaining tenant privacy, and enable efficient cross-connect provisioning. ASDV designs Irish colo MMRs to TIA-942 and EN 50600 standards with appropriate cable management, labelling and documentation.

Diverse Client Density Management

A single colocation floor may simultaneously serve a client running 2kW web servers alongside a financial services client running 30kW GPU clusters. The cooling architecture, power distribution and cable management must accommodate this density variation across the floor. ELV and ICT designers must work closely with the mechanical and electrical designers to ensure the zone-level infrastructure can support the operator's density commitments.

AI GPU Data Centres: The Emerging Third Category

The rapid growth of AI model training and inference has created a new category of data centre that sits between traditional hyperscale and GPU-as-a-service colocation. AI GPU data centres are characterised by extraordinarily high power density — typically 40–100kW per rack and in some cutting-edge deployments exceeding 150kW per rack — that requires fundamentally different infrastructure design.

The implications for ELV and ICT designers are significant:

• Full liquid cooling: Air cooling becomes impractical above approximately 20kW per rack. AI GPU deployments use direct liquid cooling (DLC) via rear-door heat exchangers, immersion cooling tanks, or direct-to-chip liquid cooling — eliminating traditional CRAC units in the GPU zone.
• Different fire strategy: Immersion cooling with dielectric fluid changes the fire risk profile significantly. Suppression agents and detection systems must be specified for the specific fluid type (mineral oil, synthetic fluid, fluorocarbon). IS 3218 requirements still apply but the detection system design must address the different aerosol characteristics of these environments.
• Modified cable architecture: Liquid-cooled GPU racks use different cable entry and management approaches — often with cable umbilicals entering from above rather than the rear, and higher bandwidth requirements per rack for NVLink and InfiniBand fabrics.
• Structural implications: An immersion cooling tank weighing 10–15 tonnes when filled creates different structural loading requirements that must be addressed from the earliest design stages.

EirGrid Capacity Challenge and Renewable Energy

The constraint on Irish data centre growth is not land, planning or construction capacity — it is electrical grid capacity and the ability to supply that power from renewable sources. EirGrid's DS3 programme and the Irish Government's Climate Action Plan 2023 set a target of 80% renewable electricity by 2030. Data centres that wish to connect to the Irish grid must demonstrate renewable energy procurement strategies as part of their planning and grid connection applications.

The leading renewable energy strategy for Irish hyperscale and large-scale colo operators is the Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA) — a long-term bilateral agreement with an Irish wind farm developer to purchase electricity at an agreed price for 10–15 years. Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all signed substantial CPPAs with Irish offshore and onshore wind developers. From an ELV design perspective, the renewable energy strategy has implications for battery storage sizing, demand flexibility systems and BMS integration that must be addressed in the design specification.

Future of the Irish Data Centre Market

The Irish data centre market is in active transition. The Dublin moratorium, combined with AI-driven demand growth and renewable energy imperatives, is reshaping where new data centres will be built and how they will be designed:

• Cork data centre cluster: Cork is emerging as Ireland's second major data centre location, with Cork Harbour offering access to the 220kV national transmission network and proximity to subsea cable landing points. Several major operators have announced Cork campus plans.
• Galway and the western corridor: The planned €3 billion Western Link HVDC interconnector will bring substantial renewable generation from the western Irish grid to the east, but also opens the west coast for data centre development connected directly to offshore wind generation.
• Offshore wind connection strategy: Ireland's offshore wind pipeline (15GW by 2030 target) will fundamentally change the Irish electricity mix. Data centres co-located with or directly connected to offshore wind generation via Private Wire are being explored as a means of bypassing grid connection queues.
• Edge data centre growth: Beyond the large campus model, Ireland is seeing growth in edge data centres serving the 5G and IoT ecosystem — smaller facilities (50–500kW IT load) located closer to population centres and enterprise campuses.