US cybersecurity firm Datadog commits to first local data centre capacity, eyes nation’s $147bn IT market
Datadog will develop its first Australian data centre capacity to mitigate strict regulations around data being shifted offshore.
Nasdaq-listed Datadog has committed to its first local data centre capacity in Australia, renting racks inside AWS facilities as the company looks to nab a slice of the nation’s $147bn IT market.
Datadog announced on Thursday it had struck a deal withe multinational cloud giant to gets it hands on racks and hall space so that it could develop sovereign cybersecurity services.
Regulators have been cracking down on local data being transferred offshore and Datadog is but one of several overseas companies that have begun to invest in developing on-the-ground capabilities to meet stricter regulation.
The move is part of what some experts call the great data repatriation and arrives as regulators have begun to penalise Australian companies that intentionally shift data overseas or inadvertently do so through the use of third-party software vendors. Datadog claims to have more than 1000 Australian and New Zealand customers, including Flight Centre and Seek.
Datadog Asia-Pacific and Japan vice-president Rob Thorne
Earlier this year Gartner analysts predicted IT spending in Australia would grow 13.4 per cent to $147bn in 2025, largely driven by cyber security, generative AI and cloud applications.
Datadog said Australia had become a “high priority” and the company recently increased its local headcount to more than 100 staff members. It operates offices in Melbourne and Sydney, where it has taken out the entire third floor of Tower Three at International Towers at Barangaroo.
Datadog Asia-Pacific and Japan vice-president Rob Thorne said the company would continue to hire locally and look to nab a slice of the nation’s growing IT spend. “We are poised to support this appetite for advanced digital capabilities across the private sector, alongside the Australian government’s ambitions to become a top three digital government,” Thorne said.
Datadog’s Sydney office at Barangaroo
Datadog chief product officer Yanbing Li said the new data centre capacity would help the likes of healthcare and financial services industries navigate regulation in a secure, local environment.
“For businesses in highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, hosting data locally is critical – a need we’re addressing with this new data centre,” she said.
