As APAC becomes the fastest-growing data center region in the world, open infrastructure has moved from a hyperscale niche to a mainstream design principle for building AI capacity at scale. Drawing on IDC's 2026 OCP Market Impact Study, this session quantifies the adoption of OCP-recognized infrastructure across Asia-Pacific and situates it within the global picture. Worldwide spending on OCP-recognized infrastructure is set to reach US$295 billion by 2029, a 22% CAGR, with APAC spending climbing toward US$80 billion as hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and a fast-emerging class of digital service and sovereign cloud players drive investment.

Dr. William Lee, Senior Research Director at IDC, will unpack where the growth is concentrated: the dominance of GPU-accelerated AI servers, the surge in liquid cooling and high-density power, and the shift of open designs beyond greenfield hyperscale into brownfield, colocation, and sovereign environments. The session maps APAC hyperscaler deployment patterns, examines the OCP Ready data center recognition program, and draws lessons from global reference projects.