Datacenter growth, ICYAIaws-remains-dominant-despite-microsoft-and-google-growth-surges Amazon AWS YoY growth last year was +63%
Microsoft: +124%
IBM: +57%
Google: +108%
Needless to say, independent or in-house solutions are less likely to closely manage power consumption and maintenance costs for things like cabling than large facilities would. Reducing power consumption by using SEVs chips in DACs has savings beyond just the electricity in the cable.
Each watt consumed by hardware requires 2 additional watts for cooling:
Near the end, as of 2012 Short distance SFP+ fiber still takes about 700mw per port. A rack can have hundreds of active ports. I can't find the message again, but I believe GaugeChanger of less than 5m consumes less than 200mw per port. When factoring in cooling, each short-cable saves 1.5 watts.
At $0.08/kwh, the data center saves $1 each year per cable on electricity alone. The SFP+ fiber modules are expensive. The center needs less A/C equipment. It may even save on insurance, given that insurers account for the size of the transformer room in a facility.