Poland ranks 15th in EMEA and 22nd globally in a Cushman & Wakefield report assessing risks in the 37 most important global markets for building data centres. The top three lowest risk countries are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Data Centre Risk Index 2016 report ranks key established and emerging locations by the most appropriate risks affecting data centre operations. This year’s report is based on a survey of more than 4,000 clients worldwide and takes into account 10 factors, including energy cost, water availability, average Internet bandwidth, ease of doing business, level of corporate tax and political stability. . The digital universe is more or less doubling in size every few years, according to the IDC, and the need to support and deliver time-critical information to end users places huge pressure on infrastructure and resources. The report aims to help companies make informed investment decisions about where to locate their data centres to increase efficiency, lower costs and to develop strategies to mitigate anticipated risk.

European countries continue to offer a low-risk environment for data centres, securing all top five index positions. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden offer politically stable environments for doing business while offering a low-risk location in terms of natural disaster risk and strong fundamentals in terms of energy security and share of renewable resources. Poland was ranked as medium risk country along with Germany and France. It benefits from low levels of corporation taxation, cost of labour and a low risk of natural disaster. However, similar to Czech Republic and Bulgaria, it is facing a fundamental issue, a lack of renewable energy sources, which holds these markets back from realising their full potential.
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