We Plan to Build a Data Center Unlike Any in Croatia

In line with global market trends in data centers, Vladimir Olujić, CTO of DataBox, announces the construction of a 10 MW data center. The capacity of this new data center will exceed the entire current Croatian data center market.

What are the trends in the data center market and how is DataBox responding to them?

– The main trend in the global data center market, and consequently in our market, besides the continuous increase in demand, is the growing power consumption of IT equipment per individual rack. Just a few years ago, the average power per IT rack was 2.5 kW, which later increased to just under 3.5 kW, and today’s standards are moving towards even 10 kW or more, with the highest loads for certain applications reaching several tens of kW within a single rack (rack). Following these trends, we have designed the new system room we are currently building with 10 kW per IT rack. We expect to have this capacity in production within six months. Thanks to these trends, the result of such an increase in energy consumption in data centers leads to a greater focus on the use of renewable energy sources, a focus on cooling efficiency, and on green certificates and ESG standards.

How is artificial intelligence (AI) changing the business of data centers?

– Artificial intelligence simultaneously impacts the business of data centers in several ways, both by drastically increasing the resources used by the data centers themselves and by utilizing that same technology to streamline operations and optimize the consumption of those same resources. In order for data centers to meet the demands of such complex infrastructure, specialized, AI native data centers are being planned and built, which can meet the required specifications of extremely high power density and technologically advanced cooling that can support such systems. The market share involved is highlighted by the fact that IDC and McKinsey predict that by 2030, AI workloads will account for more than 30 percent of total consumption in data centers, compared to less than 10 percent in 2020.

In recent years, DataBox’s business has grown significantly; what is the current situation?

– DataBox has experienced accelerated growth that will be reflected in the results for 2024, and this trend continues into 2025, with similar expectations for the coming years. In just a few years, we have multiplied the number of users, revenues, and employees while simultaneously investing in the data center, cloud, and optical infrastructure, achieving high reliability and continuously raising the quality bar of our services. As a result of this long-term business model, users recognize us primarily as a reliable and stable partner, which we believe provides truly healthy foundations for multi-year growth in revenue, number of employees, and profit at relatively high rates.

How many clients do you have, where are they from, and what types of companies are they?

– As a company that offers a very wide range of services for practically the entire market, it is quite challenging to segment because we are indeed dealing with companies of various activities and sizes, from the smallest to truly large ones. Without disclosing the exact number, there are several hundred companies that are active users of our services, and we expect that number to exceed 1,000 in the near future.

What are DataBox’s long-term business plans?

– Customer satisfaction is the guiding principle of all our efforts, investments, and considerations, both today and throughout these first 10 years of DataBox’s existence. This year, we will double the capacity of the existing data center we manage and expand the team by about 10 new employees. In the next two to three years, we plan to triple the number of kilometers of our own optical infrastructure, significantly expand the portfolio of cloud services with an emphasis on security services in the cloud, continue the development of hybrid cloud models for more demanding user groups, and, as a crown investment, build and launch a data center unlike any in Croatia, with a capacity of 10 MW. For comparison, the capacity of this designed data center is greater than the entire current Croatian data center market.

Content created in collaboration with DataBox.