Tanya Duncan, managing director of Interxion Ireland
The data centre and data-hosting sector underpins the fabric of the digital economy in Ireland, Interxion Ireland managing director Tanya Duncan told Siliconrepublic.com.
“Data centres are the engine rooms of the digital economy,” she explained. “The data centre is where everything is processed, stored and therefore underpins everything we do.”
She said data centres are the unsung heroes and pivotal in terms of the IDA’s continued success in attracting the top 10 ‘born on the internet’ companies to Ireland.
Dublin is rapidly becoming Europe’s digital capital, with players like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook, TripAdvisor, eBay, PayPal, LinkedIn and many others active in the city.
Engine rooms of growth
The access to digital infrastructure like data centres proved crucial in initially attracting these players and in turn they support the myriad of advertising, legal, software development, administration and finance jobs that support 21st-century enterprises.
“All of the large cloud providers are in Ireland, so that means the data is here, too.”
She pointed to a recent report by the global analyst firm 451 Group which predicted Ireland’s data-hosting market will grow by 18pc a year between now and 2015, outpacing the UK and mainland Europe locations.
“451 really looked at the Irish ecosystem, from infrastructure to tax and talent, and Ireland came up as an extremely favourable location to put digital assets and hosting in general.
“We are outstripping the norm, which is great to see.”
Data and analytics will be the subject of Silicon Republic’s Irish Data Forum on 22 November. For more information and speaker updates, visit the Irish Data Forum website
