JUNE 2022 | datacentremagazine.

com

Innovative
Data
Centre
CEOs

eSTRUXTURE DATA CENTERS

GOING FULL
THROTTLE
Todd Coleman, CEO of eStruxture talks strategy, speed, risk, and
becoming the frontrunning data center operator in Canada

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& 5G Conference
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23rd - 24th June
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featuring senior industry leaders and expert
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and your brand in front of key industry
decision makers.
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essential deep dive into issues impacting the
future of each industry today.
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The DataCentre Team

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER CREATIVE TEAM DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS PROJECT DIRECTOR
SCOTT BIRCH OSCAR HATHAWAY EVELYN HUANG LEWIS VAUGHAN
SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL MARTA EUGENIO
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR HECTOR PENROSE ERNEST DE NEVE MEDIA SALES DIRECTORS
SAM STEERS SAM HUBBARD THOMAS EASTERFORD JASON WESTGATE
MIMI GUNN DREW HARDMAN JAMES WHITE
PRODUCTION DIRECTORS
JUSTIN SMITH
GEORGIA ALLEN
REBEKAH BIRLESON MOTION DESIGNER MANAGING DIRECTOR
DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ
JORDAN WOOD TYLER LIVINGSTONE LEWIS VAUGHAN
PRODUCTION MANAGERS CALLUM HOOD
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
PHILLINE VICENTE MARKETING MANAGER
JANE ARNETA VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER DAISY SLATER STACY NORMAN
ELLA CHADNEY KIERAN WAITE
CEO
SAM KEMP
GLEN WHITE

COVER IMAGE:
Todd Coleman
Founder, President &
CEO at eStruxture.
Photo courtesy of
The Concours Club
DATACENTRE MAGAZINE
IS PUBLISHED BY
© 2022 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FOREWORD
The data centre
liquid cooling
market is hotting up
The latest analysis by Future Market Insights
(FMI) shows that the data centre liquid cooling
market will grow by a CAGR of 19.4% in the
next decade
Thanks to the increased use of GPUs, the data centre
liquid cooling market is on track for substantial growth
over the next ten years. This is according to a recent
analysis by Future Market Insights, which expects data
centre liquid cooling to rise at a “prodigious” CAGR
of 19.4% between 2022 and 2032, reaching a final
valuation of US$12.7bn.
To give you an idea of just how fast that growth
is, FMI states that the 2022 market value stands at
US$2.2bn. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, the
market halted altogether due to the effects of multiple
lockdowns on data centre development projects,
prompting a fall in demand for new data centre liquid
cooling systems.
However, current IT infrastructure has diversified
meaning that, now, operators and service providers
of telecom data centres and services will have the
chance to develop new technology.
SAM STEERS
sam.steers@bizclikmedia.com
datacentremagazine.com 5
 CONTENTS

Our Regular
Upfront Section:
10 Big Picture
12 The Brief
14 Timeline:
The evolution
of data centres
16 Trailblazer:
Guy Willner

44
Sustainability
Building data
centres for a more
sustainable future

54
24
MiCiM Ltd
Data centre
construction
eStruxture led by engineers
Data Centers
Going full throttle
in Canada
 SoCs
76
Cloud & Edge
Securing the industry's
future with a hybrid cloud

102
Technology
SOCs are making an appearance
In the data centre industry

110
Telehouse France
Telehouse France puts
Marseille on the global
comms hub map

82
Norwegian Data
Centre Association
Promoting Norway’s
DC credentials through
members’ skills

126
Top 10
Innovative Data
Centre CEOs
 138
Master Power
Technologies and
Digital Parks Africa
Transforming the Data Centre
environment through data
and regional development
182
atNorth Pan-Nordic
Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth
DCs, on Investment and Growth

152
Gulf Data Hub
Establishing sustainable
data centres in the
Middle East

194
Ark Data Centres
Ark Data Centres delves into
an emissions reduction strategy

206
Kao Data
Industrial-scale data centres,
inspired by hyperscale

166
DataCenter United
Going beyond Belgium,
with eyes on FLAP
 23 - 24 JUNE 2022
STREAMED & IN PERSON
TOBACCO DOCK, LONDON

SHAPING THE
BUSINESS OF
TECHNOLOGY
3,000+
Participants

2
Days

4
Zones

60+
Speakers

Get tickets Sponsor opportunities

A BizClik Media Group Event:

 Watch our 2021 Showreel

Join us at TECH LIVE LONDON

Showcase your values, products
and services to your partners
and customers at TECH LIVE
LONDON 2022.
Brought to you by BizClik Media Group
TECH LIVE LONDON, the hybrid event held
between 23rd-24th June is broadcast live to
the world and incorporates four zone areas
of Technology & AI LIVE, Cloud & 5G LIVE,
Cyber LIVE plus March8 LIVE in to one event.
With a comprehensive content programme
featuring senior industry leaders and expert
analysts, this is an opportunity to put yourself
and your brand in front of key industry
decision makers.
From keynote addresses to lively
roundtables, fireside discussions to topical
presentations, Q&A sessions to 1-2-1
networking, the 2-day hybrid show is an
essential deep dive into issues impacting the
future of each industry today.
Global giants and innovative startups will all
find the perfect platform with direct access
to an engaged and active audience. You can’t
afford to miss this opportunity.
See you on:
23 - 24 June 2022

Get tickets Sponsor opportunities

BIG PICTURE

Image:
Microsoft

12 June 2022
Unusual data centres
– Project Natick
Scotland, Orkney Island
Testing the feasibility of subsea data centre
applications, a unique deployment of such
technology can only come from Microsoft.
Seeking to understand the benefits
and difficulties of subsea data centre
deployment, Microsoft has completed its
two-year research project – Project Natick –
and is now analysing the data.
Initial findings conclude that such
applications can be reliable, practical and
sustainable, able to operate for up to five
years without the need for maintenance.

datacentremagazine.com 13
THE BRIEF
“We want a country-
The tale of Equinix
and its Chilean data
wide network of
well-connected, well-
established, high-quality
and efficient DCs that
offer multiple services to centre expansion
our customers”

FRISO HARINGSMA
Managing Director,
DataCenter United (DCU)

READ MORE

“We assure customers so

they know their data is
100% protected. There
will be no downtime, and
the equipment will always
be taken care of with the
utmost care”
HIMMATH MOHAMMED
Head of Sales and Strategies, Equinix has a decade-long as the largest provider
Gulf Data Hub history in Latin America of digital infrastructure
and currently operates services in the region.
READ MORE
11 International Business The new data centres
Exchange (IBX) data centres offer significant expansion
across Brazil, Colombia capacity for future growth
“Today, if you're an African
and Mexico. in Santiago, allowing Equinix
enterprise placed, let's say,
Its most recent addition to support both immediate
in Ghana or Nigeria and you
need some cloud usage, of four new data centres in and future customer needs.
you will go to those high- the growing data centre and As a market, Chile
profile hubs serving Africa, technology hub of Santiago, also has access to non-
such as London, Frankfurt or Chile, through Entel, conventional renewable
Paris. That comes at a cost” provides an opportunity energy (NCRE), such as
SAMI SLIM
for local businesses and solar, hydro and wind,
CEO, multinational companies which not only offsets data
Telehouse France
to accelerate their digital centre operating costs, but
transformation, while also significantly contributes
READ MORE
solidifying Equinix's position toward carbon neutrality.

14 June 2022
  CYRUSONE
US colocation giant
CyrusOne recently
BY THE NUMBERS released its latest
sustainability report,
claiming its European
What is the top data facilities have hit their
storage concern? 2030 carbon reduction
commitments already –
eight years early.

 SWITCH
U
76% 48%
Data centre company

Data Data
Switch has been acquired
by investors Digital
Bridge and IFM in a
P
Security Loss transaction valued at
US$11bn. Switch’s CEO
Rob Roy described it as
an “important step” in the
company’s growth.
JUNE
 SKILLED STAFF 2022
EDITOR'S CHOICE As digital transformation
continues to accelerate,
there is an increased
NETIX ENTERS CANADIAN MARKET

D
demand for data centre
VIA ESTRUXTURE PARTNERSHIP
capacity. This in turn is
Bulgarian global platform NetIX has formed
leading to a demand for

O
a partnership with data centre company
eStruxture to provide global connectivity more data centre staff,
solutions in Canada but, with widespread skills

W
shortages, companies are
struggling to fill the gap.
LEADING EDGE DC SECURES

N
AU$30MN DIGITAL BRIDGE INVESTMENT
Australian firm Leading Edge Data Centres is  META
accelerating its regional expansion plans after On Tuesday, the Dutch
securing AU$30mn in funding from investor Senate passed a motion
Digital Bridge calling on the government
to "use its powers" to
EXA INVESTS US$200MN IN temporarily block the
EUROPEAN NETWORK CAPACITY construction of Facebook
EXA Infrastructure is extending and enhancing owner Meta's planned
network capacity in Europe with a US$200mn giant data centre in the
investment programme from Capex Netherlands.

datacentremagazine.com 15
TIMELINE
THE EVOLUTIO
OF DATA CENT Walk through time to discover the
history and evolution of data centres,
from ENIAC to modern day applications

1960s
1946 1950s -70s

ENIAC The first ENIAC Data centres branch

data centre out from the military

Designed for the US army,
crude data centres can
be traced back to the late
1940s, when the Electronic
Numerical Integrator and
Computer (ENIAC) was the
height of computational
technology.
The US poured significant
funds into the innovation
of ENIAC technology at the
start of the Cold War.
Developed in secret, the
first ENIAC data centre was
created by engineers at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Innovations during this
decade saw an increase in
the use of the technology in
several locations in the US.
By 1951, the Universal
Automatic Computer
(UNIVAC) was developed
– the first to store data on
magnetic tapes.
During the 1960s and 70s,
investment in computational
technology increased.
By 1960, large size
machines in separate rooms
were used in controlled
environments.
IBM released its first
transistorised computer
(TRADIC) in the same decade
– equipment that helped
the concept of data centres
branch out from military use
into commercial use.

16 June 2022
ON
TRES
1980s
The introduction
of the PC
By the 1980s,
modernisations and
improvements in design
made by the likes of IBM and
Intel led to the development
of personal computing (PC).
Information technology
started to become a
significant economic
contributor, globally.
1990s
The birth of modern
day data centres
PCs had advanced the use of
data-driven technology by the
dawn of 1990. laying down the
groundwork for the modern
day data centre concept.
Users began to interact
with data centre servers
located around the world via
the internet.
The dot-com era rendered
data centres critical for
national security, internet
infrastructure and economic
output.
2000s
The need for fast
connectivity drives
data centre growth
Since the early 2000s, the
increasing need for speedy
internet connections and
24/7 operations has carved
out a significant market niche
for data centres and internet
structure.
To this day, multinational
corporations like Amazon,
Google, Intel and IBM
continue to innovate in this
space, with trends such as
cloud computing, IoT and AI
lighting the spark.
datacentremagazine.com 17
TRAILBLAZER

The journey
of IXcellera
and what it’s like
to be a CE
NA ME : Guy Willner
ROLE : Chairman and Co-Founder
CO MP AN Y : IXEurope

A
s the Co-Founder of
IXEurope, which was sold
to Equinix for US$555mn
to form Equinix Europe,
and with over 20 years leadership
experience in high-tech companies,
Guy Willner has taken his nonpareil
expertise to emerging economies,
and is leading the IXcellerate team
with his exceptional charisma, ‘out-
of-the-box’ thinking, international
market insights and comprehensive
industry knowledge.
In 1998, he co-founded IXEurope,
a market leader in high-end
data centre services. He raised
approximately US$100mn in venture
capital as CEO of IXEurope as the
company’s revenues grew over 600%
in its first 3 years. IXEurope was listed
as the UK’s fastest growing company
in the 2002 Sunday Times Tech Track
100, and Wilner received personal
recognition as semi-finalist in the UK’s
Entrepreneur of the Year (2003).

18 June 2022
ate
EO

datacentremagazine.com 19
TRAILBLAZER

IXEurope was acquired by Equinix

in 2007 for US$555mn. Prior to
founding IXEurope, Wilner worked for
CompagnieGenerale des Eaux (now
Vivendi Group) between 1992 and
1998, both in the UK and in Hungary,
to establish a telecommunications
operator culminating in a US$210mn
EBRD funding.
Willner is also the Chairman of
IXAfrica, which, last year, built a
42.5MW, hyperscale-ready data centre
in Nairobi. The data centre began its
operations this year. Discussing the
data centre at the time, he said: “It's
a smaller project than IXcellerate (a
leading operator of commercial data
centres in Russia), but a lot of fun
because you transpose all the same
skills, technology and customer base
into a totally different culture.
“But Kenya is very dynamic with a
high speed rail link from Nairobi to
Mombasa. There's a lot of investment
in Africa, which I find exciting, with
entrepreneurs building companies,
attracting serious finance and yielding
good returns. This route to growth
is preferable to aid in my opinion.
Foreign aid is often a driver of
corruption,” he said.

“An entrepreneur
IXAfrica data centres are designed
to accommodate modern high-load
servers and infrastructure for ultra-

is helped by
dense computing in accordance with
the latest global standards.
During his time at Teraco, Willner first

having a degree
met his counterpart in the foundation
of IXAfrica, Clement Martineau,
a relationship which continued

of naivety”
throughout the years he spent
developing IXcellerate into Russia’s
leading private data centre operator.

20 June 2022
The life of a CEO: Managing
workloads and problems
with a degree of simplicity
In an interview we conducted with
him, Willner also shedded light on what
it's like to be a CEO. “An entrepreneur
is helped by having a degree of
naivety, of simplicity,” he said.
“If you think too much and anticipate
all possible problems you may decide
not to go ahead: if you instinctively
charge ahead all those problems will
doubtless be waiting for you, but at least
you have the chance that you might
pull through. In addition, if you isolate
yourself and try to carry everyone's load
you will soon burn out, which I think is
one of the biggest problems facing an
entrepreneur.
“So I believe in surrounding myself
with teams of people who are far
cleverer than me – and I have succeeded
in doing that. I believe in delegation: if
you can do that it's a fun ride.”
datacentremagazine.com 21
 P R E SE NTS:

Discussing how to support women in STEM,

build the talent pipeline and inspire the next
generation of female leaders.

23rd-24th June 2022

TOBACCO DOCK - LONDON E1W 2SF

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E D U C AT E • M OT I VAT E • E L E VAT E
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PART OF: INCORPORATING:

24 June 2022
 eSTRUXTURE

eStruxture
Data Centers:
FULL-THROTTLE
APPROACH TO
DATA CENTRES
IN CANADA

WRITTEN BY:
SAM STEERS

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS VAUGHAN

datacentremagazine.com 25
Todd Coleman
Founder, President &
CEO at eStruxture.
Photo courtesy of
The Concours Club

26 June 2022
 eSTRUXTURE

Todd Coleman, CEO of eStruxture

talks strategy, speed, risk, and
becoming the frontrunning data centre
operator in Canada in under five years

H
ave you ever had a front tire
blow out at 178mph (286
kph) and then got back in
the car to try it again a few
minutes later? That’s what
entrepreneurs seemingly
do every day through trials and tribulations,
successes and failures as they climb their
way to the front of the competition. It’s
not surprising that entrepreneurs who are
calculated risk takers in the business world
are often thrill seekers in their personal
lives, in both cases understanding the risk-
return tradeoff, the sacrifices required,
learning from theirs and others’ successes
and failures, and constantly analysing data
and trends with a strong sense of gut feel
to push themselves to be the best.
One of those calculated risk-taking
entrepreneurs is Todd Coleman, Founder,
President and CEO of eStruxture Data
Centers. He founded eStruxture in 2017
and in less than five drove it to become
the single largest Canadian data centre
platform. And, as it turns out, he is also an
accomplished racecar driver. Which begs
the question: is there a common thread
between success at the track and success
in business?

datacentremagazine.com 27
 eSTRUXTURE
“It comes down to balancing
speed and risk. From a speed
perspective, I’m impatient.
I like things to go fast”
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE
Todd may spend the majority of his
time leading his company, but when
he’s not, you’ll find him racing in the
Ferrari Challenge series in a Ferrari 488
28 June 2022
Challenge racecar or
the GT America and GT4
America Championships
in a Toyota GR Supra. It’s a
passion fueled by risk and
speed - two factors that, as we’re about
to learn, relate to eStruxture’s accelerated
Canadian expansion.
“It comes down to balancing speed and
risk,” he said. “From a speed perspective,
I’m impatient. I like things to go fast. Even
when I drive to the grocery store or a
 TODD COLEMAN
TITLE: FOUNDER, PRESIDENT AND CEO
INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
LOCATION: DENVER, COLORADO, US

Todd Coleman is the

friendly Sunday drive, I'm still in a hurry.
And I think that describes what we've done
in five years at eStruxture. We're always
EXECUTIVE BIO
Founder, President and CEO
of eStruxture. Todd brings over 25
years of experience in the IT, data
center and telecommunications
industries. Previously, Todd was the
COO and Co-Founder of Cologix. He
has also held several senior positions
at Level 3 Communications, a global
telecommunications company,
including Senior Vice President of Data
Centers, Senior Vice President of Media
Operations, and President of Level 3
Communications Europe. Todd holds a
juris doctorate and a bachelor’s degree in
computer information systems.
Todd is a sought-after industry
speaker and an advocate for DE&I and
sustainability in the digital infrastructure
industry. At the same
time, Todd is an
accomplished
race car driver,
competing in the
Ferrari Challenge
and the GT America

going to be pushing at full speed.” and GT4 America

Then there’s the question of risk, Championships.
explains Coleman: “It's not that unusual
for an entrepreneur to have a personal
risk profile that's different from others.
I believe in calculated risks; investing
in areas where a return might not be
guaranteed, but the probability analysis
weighs in our favour.”
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 eSTRUXTURE

“I believe in calculated

risks; investing “For example, we went into the Calgary
in areas where a market at a time when the Alberta
economy was in a downturn. That was a
return might not be risk as the Alberta market had been hit

guaranteed, but the by weakness in the Canadian dollar and

the low cost of oil. Jobs were leaving,
probability analysis mortgages were in default. However,
that was a calculated risk. We had been
weighs in our favour” studying the market for some time to
determine which side of the economic
downturn trough it was in – the beginning,
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT the peak low or on its way back up,”
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE Coleman said.

datacentremagazine.com 31
 eSTRUXTURE

Now, however, Calgary is starting to take

off as a data centre market. eStruxture has
already largely sold out at its first Calgary
data centre (CAL-1) and is building out its
second data centre with significant pre-
sales activity. Coleman revels in being one
step ahead of the game. He said: “We've
landed some strategic customers when
no one else was there. I guarantee the
competition is going to jump on that trend
line, but they're 18 to 24 months behind.
We love that position; that's an example of
calculated risk.”
Coleman relates his propensity to
accept calculated risk in his business to
experiences in a racecar. Coleman tells a
story from when he last raced at Daytona
International Speedway in Florida. He said:
“I was on the road course and my right
front tire blew out going into a corner at
178mph. I did five pirouettes missing walls
on both sides and shot through from turn 1
to what is turn six. We were in a night time
practice session and there were headlights
coming towards me from on-coming cars,
but I didn’t hit anything. Like in business,
we quickly inspected the car and analysed
data to understand what happened and
why, replaced the tire and we were back out
on the track within twenty minutes. That’s
calculated risk.”

32 June 2022
 “As a driver, just like a business leader, we find
ourselves looking for and testing out new driving
lines around the track looking for the slightest
bit more grip and tire traction in hopes of getting
back to full throttle just that fraction of a second
ahead of the competition”
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE

Coleman racing the

Toyota GR Supra at
the Firestone Grand
Prix in St. Petersburg.

datacentremagazine.com 33
EXPERTISE AT THE HEART
OF YOUR PROJECTS
You can count on a multidisciplinary team with over 25 years of experience in
mechanical and electrical engineering that has several highly specialized projects,
in Canada from coast to-coast-to coast and on the international market.

UNE EXPERTISE AU COEUR DE VOS PROJETS

Vous pouvez compter sur une équipe multidisciplinaire ayant plus de 20 ans
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LEARN MORE
 eSTRUXTURE

It’s a team sport

Much like racing, where a whole team
of engineers, mechanics, and support
crew come together to ensure the racing
team’s success, evolving eStruxture into
the Canadian market leader that it is today
would not have been possible without the
trust, loyalty, and support of customers,
employees, investors, partners, and suppliers.
To describe eStruxture’s growth journey,
Coleman uses the metaphor of a hockey
stick, with a small plateau turning into a
steep rise in growth. Over the last five years,
eStruxture has completed more than six
acquisitions and has grown both organically
and inorganically. “We’ve acquired real estate
and built greenfield data centres; we’ve
acquired competitors and driven market
consolidation in Canada. Five years later,
we are the single largest carrier-neutral,
privately-held data centre company in
Canada,” he said.

“We are very loyal Coleman says the company is rewarded by

both the market in which it operates and the
to those that saw customers it serves, adding that “Canadians
something in us when like doing business with Canadians.” The
reason for this, according to Coleman, is that
we were just starting the company plays a “trusted advisor role”
out. It's easy to bet on with deep localised knowledge.
Since its inception in February 2017,
a winner when they are eStruxture has completed a total of four
leading the race, but I separate funding rounds from largely the
same investors who believe in and support
don't forget those who the company’s vision. The company has also
believed in us when we completed four bank lending agreements
over the course of its five-year life span,
weren't in the position the majority of which were with the same
where we are today” syndicate of banks.
He’s also grateful for the support of the
companies that helped eStruxture find its
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
feet in the highly competitive data center
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE market. “We are very loyal to those that saw

datacentremagazine.com 35
 eSTRUXTURE

“eStruxture is about creating a legacy

that all those involved can be proud
of, that has a positive impact on our
social fabric and the communities
that we are involved in”
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE

something in us when we were just starting

out. It's easy to bet on a winner when they
are leading the race, but I don't forget those
who believed in us when we weren't in the
position we are in today.”

eStruxture’s Canadian data center fleet

Today, eStruxture has 15 data centres
spread across Canada: 5 in Montreal,
where the company is headquartered, 5 in
Toronto, 3 in Vancouver, and 2 in Calgary.
Sustainability is one of eStruxture’s
fundamental, non-negotiable tenets
and plays a vital role in its data centres.
According to Coleman, none of their
new data centre builds use any water for
cooling as part of their standard basis of
design. As Coleman states: "the only water
we consume in our new data center builds
is for sinks, toilets, and humidification.”
Importantly, eStruxture also leverages
the geographic distribution of their
facilities in key regions with abundant
renewable energy supplies, to further
drive sustainability.
“We’re also capable of offering power
density at a rack level that is far higher than
the average data centre,” said Coleman. “We

36 June 2022
 Todd Coleman
Founder, President &
CEO at eStruxture.
Photo courtesy of
The Concours Club

datacentremagazine.com 37

Coleman getting
ready to go out
onto the track at
a recent race in
Watkins Glen, NY
can offer up to 30kW per rack without doing
anything Herculean with the mechanical
engineering, and without stranding valuable
white space within our facility,” he added.
Due to the importance of power density and
protecting the environment, eStruxture is
also working with various customer industry
segments, including high performance
computing, AI, and cloud providers, to look at
how it can sustainably increase power densities
utilising submerged cooling technologies while
making eStruxture’s facilities more efficient
and producing a smaller carbon footprint.
eSTRUXTURE
“eStruxture’s
employees
live by the
company’s
core value:
customers
are at the
heart of
everything
we do”
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE
Going the extra mile for the customers
“It may sound a bit trite, but customers are
everything to us. Even when we’re not selling
to them, we are always looking for ways to
support them. That may be as simple as
making an introduction to another partner or
supplier, for which we don’t take any economic
advantage whatsoever. We fundamentally
believe that if it’s good for our customer, it's
good for us. And so, our relationship with
our customers is essential,” says Coleman.
“Customer centricity may sound like a
simple strategy in theory, but taking the
time to truly understand our customers’
particular needs, their business, growth plans,
challenges and opportunities, takes time,
effort, and the right kind of mindset. Which
is why eStruxture’s employees live by the
company’s core value: Customers are at the
heart of everything we do.”
datacentremagazine.com 39
 eSTRUXTURE
Driving forces
Having built the business from the ground
up in Canada, Coleman’s plan for the
future is to continue to be a consolidator
in the market as well as invest and
deploy resources across the country.
“We continue to be a job creator both
directly because our facilities run 24/7 and
require a level of expertise and thus create
high paying jobs, but also indirectly because
every one of our customers brings high paying
high-tech jobs with it to the markets in which
we operate. So, there's a certain level of pride
for us in the level of job creation that we're
ultimately responsible for,” said Coleman.
40 June 2022
Lastly, eStruxture will continue to
focus on its tenets of sustainability and
diversity, with the latter relating to its
workforce. Coleman said: “57% of our
workforce is considered diverse, with
29% being female. 40% of my executive
team is also female. You won't find that
in the broader telecommunications
infrastructure industry, just because it
attracts predominantly white males.
And so, we want to change that. For me,
eStruxture is about creating a legacy that all
those involved can be proud of, that has a
positive impact on the social fabric and the
communities that we operate in.”
 2017
Year
founded

129 +
Number of
Employees

1.5k+
eStruxture
provides access
to an ecosystem
of approximately
1,500 customers
that trust and
depend on
eStruxture’s
mission-critical
infrastructure

Going full throttle in Canada

datacentremagazine.com 41
 eSTRUXTURE

Belden offers a
Collaborative
Approach to
Colocation Data
Center Solutions
Watch how Belden helps
eStruxture manage high ber
density while saving space with
the new DCX Optical Distribution
Frame (ODF) System.

Speak to Sales

42 June 2022
“Racing and business
have a lot more in
common than one
would think, and I take
learnings from both and
apply them every day”
TODD COLEMAN
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT
& CEO, ESTRUXTURE
Coleman sums it all up this way: “Racing
and business have a lot more in common
than one would think, and I take learnings
from both and apply them every day. Just
like in business, we don’t simply re-invent the
wheel every time we show up at a different
race track. We analyse data, watch video of
prior races, practise on simulators and do
track walks, all to determine the best racing
line, and throttle and brake inputs with the
ultimate goal of determining the fastest path
around the track. And just like in business, we
have to be prepared to blaze our own path
when the race day environment changes.
If, for example, we find ourselves racing in
the rain, everything we knew and believed
about that race track has changed and we
need to quickly adjust our strategy in real
time. As a driver, just like a business leader,
we find ourselves looking for and testing out
new driving lines in the wet around the track
looking for the slightest bit more grip and
tire traction in hopes of getting back to full
throttle just a fraction of a second ahead of
the competition.”
datacentremagazine.com 43
 SUSTAINABILITY

DATA
SUSTA

44 June 2022
 BUILDING
A CENTRES
AINABLE
FOR A MORE

FUTURE
As our demand for data
continues to increase,
the data centre industry
is expanding – all whilst
countries commit to either
carbon neutrality or net zero
WRITTEN BY: TILLY KENYON

datacentremagazine.com 45
 SUSTAINABILITY
T
he demand for connectivity over
the globe has increased rapidly
over the past few years, but even
more so over the last two years.
There has been an accelerated
need for data services such
as streaming, online shopping and more,
which is causing a spike in the power that the
technology industry consumes.
Where there is a surge in data use on this
scale, there is also an increased demand for
space to store this data, leading to a demand
for data centre space.
Power consumption is only set to grow
further as data demands increase. According
to the International Energy Agency, data
46 June 2022
centres accounted for around 1% of the
world’s total electricity use in 2019. This is
set to rise to around 3-13% by 2030 as the
digital world grows, according to research
conducted by Huawei Technologies’
Life Cycle Assessment Senior Expert
Anders Andrae.
With sustainability on the agenda of many
organisations globally, data centre providers
and operators are joining the fray with their
own strategies for reducing emissions and
reaching net zero. Many are working to get
ahead of the game and be as efficient as
possible to mitigate their environmental
impact and prove their sustainability
credentials.
“Our goal is Building 100% renewable facilities
that are equipped for high-

to create a capacity computing needs

Founded in 2010, atNorth is a leading Nordic

decarbonising
data centre services company offering
environmentally responsible, power-

platform for
efficient, cost-optimised data centre
hosting facilities and high-performance

high-density IT
computing services. But how exactly does
the company offer all of those capabilities

workloads”
and remain committed to sustainability?
Well, first of all, the electricity that
powers its data centres comes from 100%
renewable sources of energy, utilising natural
EYJÓLFUR MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON
CEO, air-cooling systems to keep the data centre
ATNORTH facilities at the optimal temperature and

datacentremagazine.com 47
 In Association with:

The World’s
Biggest
Sustainability
Event
Meet who runs
February the world.
23rd - 24th
2022 TOP 100
Women in
SUSTAINABILITY
REGISTER FOR TICKETS

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 SUSTAINABILITY

“To keep pace with

seismic shifts, Image credit:
organisations Schneider Electric

must innovate –
again and again. Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson, CEO at

But innovating atNorth, said: “Our goal is to create a

sustainably at scale
is no easy feat”
MCKINSEY
humidity – all while ensuring that energy use
is minimised across its campuses.
Any excess heat generated in its data
centre facilities is then used to heat
houses, effectively passing on a significant
by-product of the electric energy used to
power technology infrastructure as hot water
to be used in home central heating systems.
decarbonising platform for high-density
IT workloads by operating data centres
throughout all the Nordic countries, with
the possibility of expanding into Northern
Europe. We are growing to be the largest
Nordic data centre operator.
“All of this means that we are now
searching for new sites to build in the
Nordics. As sustainability is at the very
core of our business and strategy, we
envision building data centres where we
can contribute to the circular economy
by reusing heat. This is important for the
environment and also to the communities
nearest to our centres – we want to have a
general positive impact.

datacentremagazine.com 49
“The rapid growth and “The exponential growth of data-driven
business requires a new type of data centre
projected growth of – we want to be the driving force in 100%

data centres make renewable facilities that are equipped for

these high-density, high-capacity computing
energy consumption needs in a way that also gives back to both

and efficiency an
the surrounding communities and the
environment as a whole.”
important focus
Meeting climate change commitments early
in a data centre’s US colocation giant, CyrusOne, has
sustainability journey” recently published its latest sustainability
report, which looks at its progress in
making its global data centre operations
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC climate-neutral and water-positive.

50 June 2022

The company operates more than 50 data
centres around the world, with five in London
and Frankfurt, as well as additional facilities
sited in Paris, Dublin, Madrid and Amsterdam.
As of June 2021, CyrusOne’s European
facilities met their 2030 carbon reduction
commitments to the Climate Neutral Data
Centre Pact 8 years early, achieving 100%
renewable electricity and offsetting the small
amount of diesel used for backup generation.
“The future is coming quickly, and we are
doing our best to make it a more just and
sustainable one. To respond to ongoing
changes and achieve the future we hope for,
the world requires resilience – a practice
SUSTAINABILITY
Image credit:
Schneider Electric
we in the data centre industry pursue daily,”
said David Ferdman, President and CEO
of CyrusOne.
The company achieved a seven-fold,
year-on-year increase in the amount of
renewable energy it purchased in 2021,
while also achieving net positive water status
at its growing data centre in Allen, Texas
– the third data centre in its net positive
water portfolio. Initially, this began with
water-free cooling at the facility and then
developed into restoring water using BEF
Water Restoration Certificates to exceed the
remaining consumption, providing benefits
to regional wildlife and the local community.
datacentremagazine.com 51
 Climate-Neutral
Data Centre Pact
Data centre operators are committed to
the European Green Deal, achieving the
ambitious greenhouse gas reductions
of the climate law, and leveraging
technology and digitalisation to achieve
the goal of making Europe climate neutral
by 2050. To ensure data centres are part
of the sustainable future of Europe, data
centre operators and trade associations
agreed to ensure that all data centres are
climate neutral by 2030.

52 June 2022
 SUSTAINABILITY

Based in Brazil, Scala Data Centres is a

hyper-scale data centre platform with the
aim of enabling the positive future and
progress of Latin American countries through
the development of digital infrastructure in
the region.
Scala Data Centres announced in
November 2020 the migration of 100% of
its energy consumption to renewable and
certified sources, becoming the first data
centre company in Latin America to reach
this ambitious milestone.
In May 2021, Scala received the
CarbonNeutral certification. Issued by
Natural Capital Partners, the leading experts
in carbon neutrality with more than 20 years
in the game and over 300 global clients,
this is the first certification granted to a
Latin American company in the data centre
sector that already operates with 100%
renewable energy.

Creating a greener future

With their own environmental targets to
reach, governments around the world
have set environmental targets for various
industries and so have enacted many
schemes and initiatives encouraging
transparency and change for a more
sustainable future. As such, this increasing
environmental awareness among
businesses means that the sustainability
credentials of data centres are more under
the microscope than ever before – so it
pays to invest in solutions and offsets.
Today, thankfully, most data centres are
built on commitments to innovative green
and renewable strategies that include
green power, water reclamation, zero
water cooling systems, recycling and waste
management, and more. Eventually, this will
mean an end to traditional legacy facilities –
which will soon be obsolete – and the dawn
of a new era for the data centre industry.

datacentremagazine.com 53
Martin Butcher
Project Manager, MiCiM

54 June 2022
 MiCiM

Using vast industry

experience and
bespoke customer
processes to build
data centres
WRITTEN BY: PRODUCED BY:
SAM STEERS LEWIS VAUGHAN

datacentremagazine.com 55
 MiCiM
MiCiM - Focused, End-to End,
Hands-on Mission Critical Management
M
anaging Director Marc Beattie,
Construction Director Chris
Jarman, and Commercial
Director Daniel Potter founded
MiCiM Ltd in 2016. At the time they were
working on a data centre in the UK for a well-
known major construction company, but
began looking for alternatives as their UK
data centre work was coming to an end.
Beattie, Jarman, and Potter knew they
wanted to set up a business focused within
MiCiM's Collaborative Approach
56 June 2022
the data centre sector and considered
several DC service-oriented entry options
before settling on data centre construction
within MiCiM.
“In the end, we decided to just go and do
what we know best and build data centres,”
said Beattie.
They entered the market and approached
Richard Herrington, a former Director of their
previous company, who agreed to join them
and MiCiM was born.
“You have to be able
to make decisions. Marc Beattie
You have to be
TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR
INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION/
pragmatic, you DATA CENTRES

have to be able to Marc has been working in the

evaluate risk and engineering and construction

you have to be a
industry for nearly 30 years.
Having originally started out as an

good people person” apprentice in the heavy engineering

environment of nuclear submarines,
he progressed through the ranks to
MARC BEATTIE MEP management. He joined Mace
MANAGING DIRECTOR, Technology upon their inception in
MiCiM
2007 to focus fully on Data Centre
projects. After 10 years with Mace
Technology, he formed MiCiM with
his fellow directors, starting as the

EXECUTIVE BIO
Technical Director, Marc became the
Managing Director in 2021.
Hard working, pragmatic and
enthusiastic, Marc is a highly
competent professional who focuses
on project leadership and processes
throughout the RIBA Project lifecycle.

Example of
an image caption

datacentremagazine.com 57
“The leaders I know “We were very open with our previous
employer about what we were doing and they
are the people I've wished us well. We looked at our client base,

worked with - the

talked to them and advised them what we
were doing,” said Beattie.

people in my team In the beginning, Beattie and the team

were looking to build “everything they could''
- and I never had a but later realised this would be difficult as
the business was new and as a result would
plan to be a leader not pass the required financial checks. This

if I’m honest”
saw its operations shift more towards Project
Management, and they soon secured an
opportunity with Gyron. Subsequently, after
MARC BEATTIE some hard work and initial success on a
MANAGING DIRECTOR, project, more appointments were negotiated
MiCiM
and the company doubled in size after six

58 June 2022

months. The next stage of growth occurred
shortly after MiCiM’s one year anniversary
when Gyron asked Beattie and his team to
manage the construction of its next project – a
hyperscale data centre called NTT Dagenham.
According to Beattie, the new opportunity
increased MiCiM’s staff by another five or six,
and the company continued its growth.
“We received further calls from a well-
known Singaporean client whom we went
over to help finish a project in Dublin, and that
led to a construction management role on a
hyperscale data centre that we're working on
now,” said Beattie. “We were also undertaking
smaller construction projects and our
reputation grew.”
MiCiM
2016
MiCiM Ltd was formed, offering
construction management and
project management services with a
focus on the data centre industry.
This led the company to work with
Cyxtera on a project in Slough, which it was
able to complete quickly. “We won and
delivered it in a very short time frame. It was
nineteen weeks for a 2.4-megawatt fit-out,”
Beattie said. The company has subsequently
negotiated the next phase with Cyxtera
which they are currently working on.
“The early successes, coupled with
a growing reputation within the sector
allowed us to expand the board two years
ago with the appointment of Jeff Hunter
as Engineering Director. Jeff completed
the current board setup and has provided
further impetus to drive us on to the next
evolution of MiCiM.”
datacentremagazine.com 59
 “The philosophy is that, as opposed to being
a contractor with an adversarial relationship
with a client, you provide a professional
support team, to work with the client and
successfully deliver a project”

Richard Herrington RICHARD HERRINGTON

CHAIRMAN, MiCiM
TITLE: CHAIRMAN
INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION/
DATA CENTRES

Richard has 49 years’

experience covering many
sectors of the UK construction
industry. Starting in 1973 as a trainee
quantity surveyor with Costain working
on both commercial development and
public-sector projects he achieved
MRICS status in 1977. Subsequently
he developed his career with Bovis
working on hospitals, commercial
offices and LA housing schemes. He
has since held Commercial Director
positions with several national
contractors. From the early ’90s he
specialised in interior fit out
projects with ISG and
since 2006 has been
involved exclusively
with Data Centre and
EXECUTIVE BIO

critical engineering-
based projects
as a founding
Director of Mace
Technology and
since 2016 as a
founder of MiCiM.

The Construction Management
process - MiCiM’s USP
With extensive experience in delivering
projects using this form of contract, the
construction management approach, part
of MiCiM’s ISO accredited processes, allows
the company to deliver its products on time,
safely and economically. The programme, as
well as commercial design development, and
commissioning processes are managed by an
in-house team of experts. These processes
are integrated by MiCiM into the client’s team.
The company also offers a hybrid
integration service between Project and
Construction Management, which involves
MiCiM providing the client with pre-
construction advice, procurement assistance
and value engineering.
“I've been a great fan of construction
management for a long time, since my
days with Bovis who were one of the first
companies to do it in the UK,” said Chairman
Richard Herrington. “The philosophy is that,
as opposed to being a contractor with an
adversarial relationship with a client, you
provide a professional support team, to work
with the client as part of an integrated team to
successfully deliver a project.
“The Construction Management approach
to construction embraces the entire ethos of
MiCiM and the philosophy under which we
operate. In my experience of nearly 50 years in
the construction industry the most successful
projects are those where everyone is engaged
with the same like-minded approach to
solving problems and achieving the best
outcome,” he added.
Herrington attributes the success of CM
to a reliance on an “open and collaborative
integrated teamwork approach from all parties
to the project from the client down to the
trade contractor’s operatives on site. In my
experience that style of operation is rarely
found under more traditional contracting
MiCiM
“The Construction
Management
approach to
construction
embraces the entire
ethos of MiCiM and
the philosophy under
which we operate”
RICHARD HERRINGTON
CHAIRMAN, MiCiM
models where the parties are by nature
adversarial and protective of their own interests.
“In the current, fast-changing data centre
market - mostly brought about by the
development of technology and user demand
in response to the growing demands of 5G,
A.I, autonomous vehicles, video and music
streaming, hybrid home working, online
meetings, and online shopping - we are
finding that clients who have always operated
under a traditional fixed price contracting
model such as JCT design and build are
becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their
project outcomes and are looking for new
ways to approach projects.
“They are looking for alternatives which
will give them a better degree of project
control, more certainty of delivery, the ability
to select the suppliers and contractors with
whom they wish to work and to develop long
term relationships”.
Technical Expertise and MiCiM Culture
MiCiM are an engineering, technically led
business that has an enormous wealth
of young and experienced talent in the
business. Bolstered by the senior leaderships’
own experience and their very stringent
Dornan Delivering Excellence

Dornan is an international engineering and

contracting company specialising in mechanical,
electrical, instrumentation services delivering major
projects for Data Centres, Life Science, Commercial,
Industrial & Power throughout Europe.

Looking for a career change?

Visit: www.dorangroup.com/careers
recruitment process they’re able to hand pick
the right candidates for the business needs.
Hunter says: “Just being good technically
is not enough’’ The attitude of our employees
is the all-important differentiator for our
business. He continues: “I am getting to the
end of my career I was taught by some really
great people and now have a real passion to
pass on my experience to others. By creating
the right environment and operating a real
‘no blame culture’ enables us to highlight the
passion, dedication and ambition exuded by
the younger generation.”
With this great attitude comes a
continued need for self-improvement and
at MiCiM we all strive hard to create an
environment where anything is possible for
everyone, and continued learning is actively
encouraged.
To be achieve our business aims there are
seven key areas we have identified to focus
on for our staff continual learning:
• Safety management
• Technical management
• Risk management
• Program management
• Quality management
• Package cost management
• Client stake holder management

datacentremagazine.com 63
 MiCiM
The Real Aim of this is to give the skills and
understanding to ensure we create True
Business leaders for the future.
MiCiM awareness about the current
imbalance and lack of female representation
within the industry and how the construction
64 June 2022
industry is perceived as a male dominated
industry. Opened up a challenge for MiCiM
to help to create more gender equality within
our organisation with the hope that this
extends to the entire industry in time. MiCiM
have launched the Women in Construction
 “Our approach has
Jeff Hunter always been to
TITLE: ENGINEERING DIRECTOR
study the detail to
INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION/
DATA CENTRES inform the project
delivery strategy.
Jeff has a 44 year career in This optimises our
engineering, he considers
himself so lucky as during the 1970s he chances of success”
was trained by some of the very best
in the industry. He has worked across JEFF HUNTER
the world in many different countries ENGINEERING
DIRECTOR,
delivering vast engineering projects MiCiM
from Car Engine block assembly
lines, sewage treatment plants, food
production facilities, office facilities
and for the last 22 years Data Centres.
Jeff has built businesses from scratch
recruiting and training hundreds of
engineers over the years and has
delivered some of the most challenging
Data Centres projects and Campuses
in Europe. Jeff has an incomparable
work ethic and the ability to work very
effectively under pressure. He provides
strategic thinking, guidance and
leadership to project delivery teams
and other team members.
EXECUTIVE BIO
 MiCiM

“In the end, we

decided to just go
and do what we
know and build
data centres”
MARC BEATTIE
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
MiCiM

Initiative organised by Lisa Taylor,

Kerry Haynes and Alison Newell it’s
fully supported by the MiCiM board
of directors and championed by
Managing Director, Marc Beattie.
Beattie says: “We want to support
the ambition of creating gender
equality within the construction
industry and our commitment
in doing is at the core of our
values.” MiCiM plan to achieve
this by supporting, promoting
and championing the women
in their workplace, providing
equal opportunities for all. MiCiM
promotes a culture of inclusion,
respect, opportunity and dignity,
as part of their vision in becoming
the employer of choice for females
looking for a challenging and
rewarding career in the construction industry. used to ensure the correct process are being
followed to achieve the desired outcomes.
Project protocols for efficiency With a very detailed knowledge of how
At the project commencement MiCiM work to effectively manage projects. The MiCiM
with our clients to develop a risk adverse and board from their collective experience
efficient project protocols document. This is recognise the need for efficiency in all
easily tailored between very large Campus aspects of project delivery. They have
CM projects to small internal fit our projects all worked on projects over the years
it includes such items as document control experiencing firsthand the demoralising
and storage, project reporting, and record effect, time wasting and inefficiency by use
keeping. It is shared with all parties and is of multiple incompatible systems.

66 June 2022
 350+
Number of years
MiCiM have in
combined Data
Centre Experience

7
Number of
employees
in 2016

85+
Number of
employees
in 2022

In a drive for better efficiency and to add

even more value they are currently actively
developing a cloud based system with their
software partners that will provide real time
updates on every aspect of project delivery
which will generate real time project reports
giving all stake holders total visibility of the
project status in real time. We are part way
through this process led by Sian Straw our Lisa Taylor
PMO Lead which they anticipate will be Commercial Manager, MiCiM
completed Q3 2022.

datacentremagazine.com 67
 MiCiM

Sustainability, digital
transformation, and modular design
From experience, MiCiM has proven
that modelling reduces waste, time and
improves quality all of which contributes to
sustainability. Giving an example of digital
modularisation and modular design at work.
Modularisation can mean totally different
things to different people. At MiCiM the
team and staff have been involved with
Modularisation since 1999, they have
designed and built government projects
using these principles. MiCiM have designed
and constructed whole Data Centres in Kit
form or taken an existing design in a built
environment and extended the facility using
Modular techniques.
Jeff Hunter, Engineering Director at MiCiM,
said: “Over the last 20 odd years, we've
championed it continuously and it's helped
us to secure project delivery for our clients.”
Whilst every project is not suitable to
employ these techniques and you have to

“When we start a project

really understand the methods to be used.
It is recognised wherever possible they
and we approach it should be used as there are obvious and
huge advantages to this approach. Hunter
from the end user says: “We can achieve better quality, less

perspective... We verify staff to install on site, no revisits for snagging,

environmental benefits for transport and staff
the programme by travel is reduced, less site staff is safer as they

inputting real detail

are easier to manage, site logistics can be
improved, on site construction can be faster.”
and by working back “In our open honest and collaborative way
we can also share adopting this approach
from the project end requires a change of thinking as it attracts

to the start” pressure to complete the design sooner, and

relies on upfront orders being placed for key
elements. If this can be accommodated the
JEFF HUNTER benefits overall way exceed the negatives.”
ENGINEERING
DIRECTOR, From a sustainability viewpoint, MiCiM’s
MiCiM championing of modular design is also very

datacentremagazine.com 69
 MiCiM
effective. This approach allows each job
to be assembled rather than built. Hunter
explains that this means “you haven't got
as many lorries transporting equipment to
the site. You haven't got as much waste,
which means you haven't got as many
lorries carting waste away, and efficiency is
increased, in addition to quality and surety
of delivery.
“What it does do is change the cost profile
on a project and it changes the design
mindset,” said Hunter. “You spend more
time offsite to provide better results onsite.”
“Data centres are a processing facility,
and the product, in this case, is data. So we
start a project and we approach it from the
end-user perspective. We consider what
needs to be achieved to deliver the facility
70 June 2022
to enable the process to work, we then
effectively work a programme and project
controls backwards to the start. And then
that develops into a detailed programme
which feeds into programme project
controls and programme management,”
Hunter said.
An important part of MiCiM is its
modular design process and how it affects
sustainability and digital transformation.
Discussing it in more detail and how it relates
to sustainability, Beattie commented: “Digital
modularisation is probably slightly different
to sustainability.” Chris Jarman added that
the two are “very closely related” but pointed
out that the early engagement of project
management and engineers to produce
models is an important part of the process.
 “All of our supply chain specialists are
selected because of their experience
working with the MiCiM team in a live
data centre environment”
CHRIS JARMAN
CONSTRUCTION
DIRECTOR, MiCiM
Chris Jarman
TITLE: CONSTRUCTION DIRECTOR
INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION/
DATA CENTRES

Chris has 38 years of

experience in construction
covering many sectors of the
industry. Being qualified in both
Building and Building services he has
always fostered a collaborative and
coordinated approach to the delivery
of projects that bring construction
and technical services together
rather than the historic them and us
attitude. This approach is particularly
useful and successful in the delivery
of critical services projects where
communication, co-ordination and
clear make ready needs are key to the
success of the venture. From the late
’90s he has specialised in Data
Centre and critical services
EXECUTIVE BIO

projects. His philosophy

has always been to create
a “joined up” team
approach from clients,
consultants, disciplines
and trades to deliver what
the client expects.
Traditional Build and Supply Chain
Partnerships
MiCiM adopts the same approach and
processes for critical fit-out in an occupied
building as it does when providing
constructing a new facility, adding more detail
on handover and inspection measures.
There is an increased requirement for
communication on a day to day basis with the
client team and the programme is generally
predicated on available shutdown windows
for maintenance and critical works which are
utilised, integrated and optimised within the
construction programmes.
“Whilst MICiM is a strong advocate of the
Construction Management approach to data
centre delivery, it also carries out traditional
build projects for some of our clients where
we act as principal contractor and have sub-
contractors delivering specialist services.
“Our philosophy however does not
change,” Jarman said. “We need a like-minded
team focused on the delivery and to that end
we have developed supply chain partners who
also have the necessary experience within our
market to deliver the client’s vision and what
the designers have presented.
72 June 2022
MiCiM’s suppliers are prequalified using all
the usual capability, experience, commercial,
health & safety, and environmental measures
but crucially we want to work with companies
who are open and honest and work with us
as a team to deliver and so we have built up
these relationships, some of which started
long before the company’s inception.
“We work collaboratively with these
partners to provide the right programme
and most efficient environment for them to
achieve a quality product to the benefit of
all parties.”
“Our ISO accredited processes are
understood by our supply partners and
employed by us throughout the project to
deliver customer satisfaction. We focus on
risk whether that be external as in long lead
equipment, or internal such as business risk
working in live facilities, these are properly
managed and mitigated to ensure the best
outcome on the projects,” Jarman said.
He added that “all of the company’s supply
chain specialists are selected because of their
experience working with the MiCiM team in
a live data centre environment. For example,
we are currently working with ESG, on a data
 MiCiM

Daniel Potter
“Creating a
TITLE: COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR strong team
INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION/
DATA CENTRES bond is
Daniel has 20 years’ experience
paramount
in the construction industry
having trained in both commercial and
to a united
construction aspects. He has worked on a
wide variety of projects ranging from high
delivery”
end residential, commercial offices, hotels
and leisure sector, ultimately specialising DANIEL POTTER
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR,
in Mission Critical facilities. MiCiM
Daniel co-founded MiCiM in June
2016 following 10 years at one of the UK’s
leading Data Centre delivery specialists.
He develops long standing relationships
with end user clients, consultants and
supply chain partners that have spanned
the many projects he has been involved in.
In partnership with Richard Herrington,
Daniel leads the commercial delivery
of MiCiM’s service offerings, both are
committed to the company’s core values
of a Forward thinking, Client Focused,
Collaborative approach to doing
business, with an aim to ensuring the
customer experience reaches the highest
possible standards.
EXECUTIVE BIO
Setting the
Standard
since 1975
ESG are a leading building services
contractor that strives for engineering
excellence on every project delivered.
As a trusted partner of choice and
with an extensive portfolio of work,
we operate across a diverse range of
sectors, providing the best end-to-end
solution for your project.

Learn more
 MiCiM

centre project in a live environment in Slough.

Working closely with the client project and
operational teams we have been able to
manage any operational issues that have
arisen and completed our intrusive works
without incident. Taking this approach we
have achieved success on all of our projects
working in occupied facilities without issue.”

MiCiM’s plans for the future: Growth

and design and build opportunities
In terms of MiCiM’s future plans over the
next 12 months, growth is certainly on the
cards. Talking through the company’s next
steps in more detail, Beattie said: “Currently
we’ve got two UK-based teams and an
international CM team. Which we’re looking
to expand to take on more work in Europe.
“We also have a Project Management
offering which historically has grown
organically with the workload.”
According to Beattie, the company’s
strategy for 2022-23 for hyperscale clients
is to engage in more major projects using
the construction management process.
This is due to ongoing demand and the fact

“We also have that the company has a strong client base,
Beattie said.
a Project In addition, MiCiM also has other more
traditional construction opportunities
Management lined up. “These will be serviced by the

offering which
UK teams,” Beattie said, adding that he
and Hunter are “predominantly focused”

historically has on MiCiM’s Ireland division and the

international sector of the business.

grown organically Beattie added that MiCiM would like

to share the benefits of construction
with the management with clients, adding that it
is “the way ahead for fast development
workload” of data centres by a company with the
delivery expertise.”

MARC BEATTIE
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
MiCiM

datacentremagazine.com 75
 CLOUD & EDGE

76 June 2022

D
ata centres have evolved
considerably since their initial
inception. Adapting in sync with
the evolution of business needs,
the data centre industry itself –
and its importance – has grown exponentially.
Remote working, a phenomenon that has
picked up pace in recent years, has led to
advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT),
escalating data requirements, and ongoing
cloud adoption, all of which have contributed
to a shift away from traditional enterprise data
centre facilities to ones that are more adaptive
to the needs of the user.
Cloud technologies have become
essential to colocation services,
particularly with the emergence of
this global remote workforce.
The push towards the
cloud continues as more
and more companies are
utilising cloud software
services to secure and back
up their IT infrastructure.
Decentralised workforces
WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY
mean companies now need to diversify how
they store data to ensure workers can still
perform their roles effectively while retaining a
high level of security – any delay or issues with
either performance or security could lead to a
negative impact on the business.
As cloud computing is essential for business,
it comes as no surprise that colocation
providers have responded to this and now
provide a simple answer for this shift. Through
such provisions, data centres can support
businesses as they move legacy applications
and environments to a high-quality connected
environment that’s cross-connected into
the cloud.
“The cloud
is evolving”
ACCENTURE
datacentremagazine.com 77
Sustainability
Performance

Customized
Turnkey Infrastructure
Containment Solutions
Through a Single Provider Visit www.subzeroeng.com

Providing Quick Installation

and Full Support Across EMEA

Responding to the
changing needs of businesses
As the technology space evolves,
however, cloud technologies only serve
certain sections of business needs, so
companies are developing robust hybrid
cloud strategies to create opportunities
allowing for quicker decision making,
cost reductions, enhanced customer
engagement and the assurance of privacy.
Accenture says: “The cloud is evolving.
It’s becoming a dynamic continuum of
capabilities: private options are booming;
hardware manufacturers are launching public-
like offerings; and edge computing is set to
grow exponentially over the next five years.
“The cloud is no longer a single, static
destination – it’s the operating model of the
future. As a result, more companies are turning
to a hybrid approach. In fact, experts say 90%
of organisations will soon opt for these multi-
cloud architectures to avoid over-reliance on a
single public cloud provider.”
The Global Hybrid Cloud Market is expected
to grow by registering a CAGR of 21.06%
between 2021 and 2026. The growth of cloud
and industrialised services in conjunction
with the decline of traditional data centre
outsourcing indicates a notable shift toward
hybrid infrastructure services.
CLOUD & EDGE
“The cloud is no
longer a single,
static destination.
It’s the operating
model of
the future”
ACCENTURE
To meet this shift, data centre providers
need to secure their future by transforming
once again to meet the hybrid needs of
businesses. A hybrid data centre offers a
combination of cloud-based and on-premises
infrastructures that enable the sharing of
applications and data between the data
centres using a network.
Not only do colocation providers need to
respond to this change to support businesses,
but they also need to protect their own; it’s
no secret that the industry has been facing an
increasing amount of challenges from public
cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and AWS.
By supporting hybrid clouds with
infrastructure within the data centres
themselves, colocation providers can begin to
compete with public cloud providers, even if
the solutions themselves involve customers
leveraging public cloud services as part of
hybrid architectures.
datacentremagazine.com 79
 CLOUD & EDGE

The benefits of a hybrid cloud data centre

Ease of use: With a hybrid data centre,
businesses can simply move processes from
their on-premises environment to the cloud
one at a time, whenever they are ready.

Supporting the remote workforce: It is easier

to meet the needs of a remote workforce
with a hybrid data centre. Processes that
need to be deployed and managed in the
cloud can be migrated there, and, as a result,
it is simpler to make them available to a
remote workforce and support them as they
work away from the office.

Business resilience: As hybrid data centres

execute periodic backups, the amount of
downtime businesses may experience is less
than they would experience with pure-cloud
architectures. It is also more resilient when
it comes to dealing with situations where
demand for resources suddenly spikes and,
therefore, more reliable.

Improved options for scalability and control:
In the event that you need more resources
to handle demand – which for many
businesses is highly likely, particularly in
light of the growing significance of data
analysis for business success – a hybrid data
centre can scale up by taking advantage of
resources in the public cloud portion of a
business' data centre architecture. In this
way, organisations benefit from one of the
primary advantages of cloud computing.

“Experts say 90% of Reducing business costs: With a hybrid data

organisations will soon centre, there is no need for organisations to

opt for these multi- pay extra for hardware they may not need
or even use: companies buy what they
cloud architectures to need and scale up when necessary – if at

avoid over-reliance all – saving costs on unnecessary hardware

and enabling businesses to instead use that
on a single public money on other, more critical assets.

cloud provider” Securing the colocation industry’s future

All of these benefits, and the growing
ACCENTURE popularity of public cloud services,

80 June 2022
 A hybrid data centre combines on-prem and cloud-based
infrastructure with orchestration that allows data and applications to
be shared between them over the network. This allows an organisation
to achieve a balance between the capabilities and benefits provided by
public and private clouds, alongside on-prem infrastructure.

mean colocation providers need organisations are so dependent on the

to offer value that extends beyond
convenient server space.
The ability to extend public cloud
resources into private infrastructure is
highly valuable. It means that businesses
can keep the workloads they already have
running in public clouds, but a hybrid facility
doesn’t require the compliance and cost
that surface from having to host workloads
on public cloud infrastructure.
Despite this, building a hybrid cloud
infrastructure presents its own challenges.
Fully-managed solutions like AWS Outposts
are costly, while alternatives like Azure Arc
and Google Anthos require users to acquire,
provide and manage their own hardware.
This can be challenging for many
businesses as a huge proportion of
public cloud that they are not accustomed
to managing their own infrastructure.
However, this again could help colocation
providers as they look to secure their own
future and compete with public clouds.
As such, data centres could begin to
support customers with services that help
manage hybrid cloud infrastructure inside
colocation data centres.
Those services could be the help
that many businesses need to make
the jump from using the public cloud
alone to going hybrid. Additionally, it
can remove challenges around poorly
integrated IT strategies that involve private
infrastructure and public cloud resources
running simultaneously, without a unified
control plane.

datacentremagazine.com 81
82 June 2022
 PROMOTING
NORWAY’S
DC CREDENTIALS
THROUGH
MEMBERS’ SKILLS
WRITTEN BY:
SAM
STEERS

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS
VAUGHAN

datacentremagazine.com 83
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

Bjørn Rønning, General Manager of The

Norwegian Data Center Industry, explains
the company’s work in promoting the
industry through its members

T
he Norwegian Data Center
Industry is an association
formed of seven data centre
operators and power providers.
Known as the ‘founding fathers’,
these include Green Mountain, Stack
Infrastructure, Lefdal Mine Datacenter, Bulk,
Basefarm, Ringerikskraft and Statkraft. The
association also noticed that there was
significant interest from other areas of the
ecosystem and today it consists of around
35 members – from power providers to
hardware suppliers.
Its aim is to promote the country’s data
centre sector through its members and
working groups.
“What really made us pull this together
was the joining of forces on addressing
the tax barriers that kept us from being
competitive with our neighbouring
countries,” Bjørn Rønning, General Manager
of The Norwegian Data Center Industry said.
The need for an association like the
Norwegian Data Centre Industry increased
during the height of the pandemic, which
accelerated the company’s growth further
and allowed it to identify the main issues
the Norwegian sector is experiencing and
how best to tackle them.
According to an analysis conducted
by Implement Economics – part of the
Implement Consulting Group – data
centre capacity in Norway has increased
by 17% per year since 2010. In 2020,

84 June 2022
datacentremagazine.com 85
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY
Promoting Norway’s Data Centre Credentials
“It’s essential for
us to grow as an
organisation, to recruit
more members, and
expand the already
quite large ecosystem”
BJØRN RØNNING
CEO,
NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY
approximately 145 MW of capacity was
installed, and this capacity is expected
to grow sharply in the years to come.
In the period 2019-2020, at least NOK
2.7bn (US$3.06bn) was invested in new
data centres in Norway. The investments
are driven by both Norwegian and
international demand.
86 June 2022
“I think one of the key themes here is
the energy situation and the total cost of
ownership – the TCO – of energy,” says
Rønning. “It’s all about turning around the
perception of Norway that it is, in inverted
commas, ‘not open for business’. Norway
is absolutely open for business. We have a
very mature digital population; we have a
government that’s really backing the data
centre strategy; and we have a vibrant data
centre ecosystem that is led by five large
data centre operators.”
Working groups address key areas
of the data centre sector
In addition to reducing tax and improving
framework conditions, the Data Center
Industry association looks to advertise
and promote the industry. It achieves
this through its working groups. Based
on requirements from the association’s
members, there are four working
groups categorised into Sustainability,
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

International Marketing, Power & Grid and
Skills Development.
Each of the groups is working on different
projects. The Sustainability working group,
for example, is focused on heat reuse
projects. As the Norwegian operators already
tick the box for renewable energy and world-
leading power-efficiency, heat reuse is the
next step on the road to carbon neutrality.
“We are also looking at how we can get
consistent and transparent reporting on
climate factors, so we can compare apples
with apples in terms of other markets or
other countries,” Rønning explains.
Rønning says that the global data centre
industry is in short supply of personnel such
as electricians and people who work with
cooling and heating technology. Although
the situation in Norway is not as critical,
the Skills Development group aims to
spur development of skilled resources to
the DC industry. “We are actively working
with schools to develop apprenticeship
programmes to encourage more young
people into the business,” he says.
Then there’s what Rønning refers to as
the working group for power-related issues.
He wholeheartedly believes that Norway is
equal to other countries when it comes to
building grids, launching projects, and having
on-site power availability. This is, however,
cumbersome work as Rønning points out.
“You’re working with large, monopolistic
organisations like grid providers and so forth,
and we are actively working to see how we
EXECUTIVE BIO
centre industry in Norway today that is open
for business to take in new clients who are
looking for cost-effective and sustainable
solutions,” Rønning says.
Norway’s unique position as a
sustainable data centre location
Sustainability also plays an important part in
the association’s strategy, as the industry
Continues page 12 
BJØRN RØNNING
TITLE: CEO
INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
LOCATION: OSLO, NORWAY
Bjørn Rønning is the CEO of
Norwegian Data Center Industry,
a trade association, and the voice of
the data center industry in Norway. Mr.
Ronning is a telecom professional and
has through his career worked as an
advisor in the national and international
digital infrastructure space, including
terrestrial and subsea fiber optic
networks, data centres and related
digital infrastructure.

make the permit processes for power grid

construction more effective.”
The last of the four groups is International
Marketing, which aims to promote Norway
as a sustainable data centre destination.
“We have so many sites, so much renewable
power and so much connectivity and
competence to offer. We have a vibrant data
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

TAKING SUSTAINABILITY TO THE NEXT LEVEL WITH HEAT REUSE

In Norway, we are fortunate to have access 2. Land-based lobster farm – The company,
to 100% renewable hydropower to operate Norwegian Lobster Farm, will use the waste
and cool our data centres. This also means heat from Green Mountain’s DC1 data
that we are in a good position to take centre. To grow optimally, the lobster needs
sustainability to the next level, exploring a temperature of 20°C in the seawater.
new solutions to support the green shift. This is exactly the temperature of the
An area with huge potential is reuse of seawater that has been used to cool the IT
waste heat from data centres. Several equipment. In a production facility adjacent
operators in Norway have initiated pilot to the data centre, this heated seawater can
projects to address this challenge and, be used directly in the breeding of lobsters.
below, we present a few examples: As a result, the energy is reused, and Green
Mountain is one step closer to making the
1. Greenhouse plants – Bulk Data Centers facility climate positive. More info
has signed letters of intent on the recovery
of heat across all its data centres, to
ensure any excess is utilised in the district
heating network. This will provide heat
for several energy intensive processes
and ventures, including Bulk’s first step to
realise its circular industry cluster vision
at its N01 campus in Kristiansand with
Kristiansen Gartneri (Greenhouse Plant). In
this instance, the heat provided will power
Kristiansen Gartneri’s greenhouse vegetable
operations – keeping vegetables sufficiently
warm and reducing the greenhouse’s power
needs – making food production more cost-
effective and sustainable. 3. Land-based trout farm - Hima Seafood
SUSTAINABILITY...

is going to establish a land-based trout

farm 800m from Green Mountain's DC2-
Telemark data centre. By connecting the two
facilities together by a pipe system, we will
deliver heated water to Hima. Heat exchange
technology will then ensure that the Hima
facility can use the energy from the water.
The same water is subsequently returned
to Green Mountain. The water now holds a
lower temperature that can be used in the

88 June 2022
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

cooling of the data centre. In other words, a

truly circular project. The farm is estimated
to be operational in 2023. More info

4. Smolt production – Lefdal Mine

Datacenter cooperates with Sjomatstaden,
a future-oriented seafood centre nearby
their facility. They will use the waste heat
from the data centre to produce smolt (a
young salmon ready to live in saltwater.)
Production with heated water is twice as
fast, compared to using original ocean
temperature. Estimated production in
phase 1 is 6 million smolts/year, which in
turn will result in 15.000 tonnes of salmon
annually. This will also save the seafood
centre an annual power capacity equal to
12MW. More info

datacentremagazine.com 89
 DATA CENTRES IN NORWAY

SUSTAINABILITY WITH A COST BENEFIT

Electricity Generation in Norway

Thermal power - 11.9%

Wind power - 1.0% From 4 cent

/ kWh Incl.
Hydro power - 87.1% grid fee

Source: SSB

Green Lowest Energy Prices

Energy in Europe
•
Electricity production in Norway •
Lowest electricity prices in Europe
is 98,9% renewable •
Competitive grid fees
•
Consecutive annual energy surplus •
Lowest energy tax in Europe

Source: government.no Read more on TCO on p.06

Sustainability to Carbon footprint

the next level of electricity:
•
Heat Reuse projects •
Norway average: 34.02 gCO2eq/kWh
•
Average PUE: < 1.2
•
Cold and wet climate • F LAP-D average: 260.35 gCO2eq/kWh
Source: PUE numbers from operators Source: Average in 2021 Electricity Map.org

Carbon Intensity - Europe 2021

Germany: 329.70 gCO2eq/kWh

France: 59.03 gCO2eq/kWh
United Kingdom: 246.55 gCO2eq/kWh
Ireland: 363.42 gCO2eq/kWh
Netherlands: 329.7 gCO2eq/kWh
Denmark: 190.36 gCO2eq/kWh
Norway: 34.02 gCO2eq/kWh

400 300 200 100 0

90 June 2022
EXCELLENT CONNECTIVITY

Fibre Routes
Recent investments in subsea
fibre infrastructure have improved
Norway’s connectivity.
List of routes:
< 15ms
• Skagenfiber West
• Skagerak 4
• Havsil
• Havfrue/AEC-2
< 20ms
• NO-UK Cable
• Celtic Norse
• Leif Erikson
• Tampnet
< 30ms
Latency
Examples from Oslo, the Norwegian capital and Stavanger, on the west coast of Norway.

RTD IN MS FRANKFURT LONDON AMSTERDAM PARIS DUBLIN

OSLO 14.4 14.9 12.6 19.9 18.2
STAVANGER 14.1 11.6 16.3 17.4 12.1

Source: Invest in Norway

STRONG ECO SYSTEM

Digital mature Norwegian Datacenter

and skilled workforce
•
High competence, independence,
high efficiency
•Flat hierarchies
Political
Commitment
The Norwegian Government issued the
world’s first data centre strategy in 2018 and
updated it in 2021. This is a strong political
commitment to continuously work to improve
the framework conditions (taxes, energy, fibre)
for the data centre ecosystem.
Industry
Members of the association represent the
whole data centre ecosystem, form site
developers, designers, builders, suppliers,
fibre operation, power providers to data
centre operators. Currently there are 30+
members, the number is steadily growing.
Member of the European
Single Market
Norway is fully integrated in the European
Single Market through the EEA and Schengen
Agreement.

Source: government.no

datacentremagazine.com 91
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

92 June 2022
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

itself has always been beleaguered by the

difficulties sustainability poses. “I think
that the data centre industry has always
been challenged on the sustainability issue.
That has, however, also led us to be in the
forefront of developing and integrating
sustainable solutions in the data centre
industry,” Rønning says.

“We are also looking at how

we can get consistent and
transparent reporting on climate
factors so we can compare apples
with apples in terms of other
markets or other countries”
BJØRN RØNNING
CEO,
NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

In short, the long-term strategy for the

Norwegian Data Centre Industry is quite
simple, according to Rønning. “It's promoting
the existing data centre industry in Norway,
which is welcoming all kinds of business
because we have ample space and ample
access to power. In addition, we have a
fantastic connectivity infrastructure that had
a heavy uplift during the last five, six years.”

A partner ecosystem represented

by its members
The Norwegian Data Centre Industry’s
partner ecosystem within the association
is represented by its members. Our
current members include Norwegian and
international data centre operators, the MEP
supplier industry, construction companies,
HW/SW suppliers, communications

datacentremagazine.com 93
AUTOMOTIVE DATA GOING NORTH
Automotive data going north
The focus on the Nordics as the ideal
data centre location has increased
over the last few years, especially in
light of the region's plentiful access to
renewable power and beneficial climate
for efficient cooling. An industry that
has certainly set its eyes on the Nordics
is the automotive industry. Their High-
Performance Computing (HPC) workloads
are a perfect fit for colocation providers
in Norway.
The automotive industry is going through
a massive transition. Electrical vehicles,
autonomous driving, new business models
and the race towards carbon neutrality are
driving this industry through massive changes.
This also means that automotive companies
are having to store and process enormous
amounts of data to make this transition. An
increasing share of this data now finds its
way to Norway. Here are two examples of
international automotive companies who
have made the move to the Nordics.

Crash Tests Using the Power of Water

In 2019, Volkswagen group moved its HPC
operations to Green Mountain’s data center
in Rjukan, Telemark. Two new data halls were
constructed on the Green Mountain premises
in only six months. These halls are supplied
with up to 2,75 MW of power – that generates
plenty of computing capability that Volkswagen
and Audi will apply to run HPC projects like
simulated crash tests and virtual wind tunnel
trials. In comparison to a conventionally operated
computer center, the facility in Rjukan saves
Volkswagen Group more than 5,800 tons of CO2
annually. Read full story

Photo credit: Volkswagen Group

94 June 2022
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

Photo credit: Lefdal Mine

Lefdal Mine Datacenter welcomes Mercedes-

Benz to its underground facilities
In 2021, Lefdal cooperated with Infosys to sign
a large data center agreement with Mercedes-
Benz. The company moved its High-Performance
Computing (HPC) cluster to Lefdal Mine
Datacenter and was then one step closer to
becoming a carbon-neutral company. Mercedes-
Benz uses the global IT giant Infosys to operate
its IT infrastructure. Infosys delivers “Green Data
Center as a Service” to Mercedes-Benz from the
facility in Nordfjord. Read full story

datacentremagazine.com 95
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

“You’re working with

large, monopolistic
organisations like
grid providers and
so forth, and we are
actively working
to see how we
make the permit
processes for power
grid construction
more effective”
BJØRN RØNNING
CEO,
NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

operators, power companies, and

companies in the consulting industry.
“If you start at the very bottom of the
ecosystem, you have the site providers.
You have several companies also owned by
local municipalities that offer sites for data
centre projects.
“We are working with them to really
adapt the site to be even more attractive
for new data centre projects,” Rønning
says. The company also works with both
designers and suppliers of plumbing,
mechanical, and electrical equipment, as
well as operators and their subcontractors.
“The ecosystem is complete, in terms of
covering the entire value chain.”
Rønning also adds that the Norwegian
Datacenter Industry also welcomes new
data centre operators to Norway.

96 June 2022
NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY

“Our well established supply chain network

can assist foreign data centre operators
wanting to establish new data centre
operations in Norway.”
Discussing the working relationship with
the ecosystem, he says: “My organisation is
created by my members and it's basically
meant to serve my members. So, I think
that one of my most important tasks is
to listen to my members, hear them out,
understand what their concerns are and the
opportunities they want to develop, and
that's why we have established these four
working groups.”

- The Norwegian Data Centre Industry

was founded to provide solutions to
challenges faced in the data centre sector
and to promote the country of Norway as
an attractive market.
- It was founded in 2021.

datacentremagazine.com 97
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY
INTERVIEW WITH DC BYTE ON THE NORWEGIAN DC MARKET
1. In your view, what are the growth
projections for the Nordic market? And
what are the drivers behind this growth?
The data centre market in the Nordics is
5 times the size it was a decade ago. With
over 1.3GW of total capacity added between
2016 to 2021 and average yearly growth of
17.5%, it has the potential to grow by more
than 60% of its current live capacity rate
over the next 3-5 years.
The region has become a relatively
DC BYTE...
attractive location for hyperscale public
cloud operators, with around 58% of the
live capacity in the region coming from self-
built public cloud deployments. The key
drivers for the popularity of the Nordics
Jovita
Januskeviciute
98 June 2022
are the area’s cool climate, an established
infrastructure, good network connections
and a plentiful supply of renewable energy.
2. Does Norway stand out in any way
compared to the other Nordic countries?
Each of the countries within the Nordic
region has unique features. Some factors
are more common across the region, whilst
others are country-specific. Increasing
global concern about climate change
and the signing of the Paris Agreement
is driving businesses to look for more
environmentally sustainable
ways in which to
operate. As an
industry that
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY
is heavily reliant on power, data centre
operators are continually seeking more
sustainable and efficient solutions.
Norway has great potential in this regard
due to an abundant supply of green
energy. Almost all electricity produced
by the country emanates from green
energy sources. In addition, Norway has
an industry-supportive government that
favourably impacts national industry
growth. In the last 4-year period, Oslo’s data
centre market has grown at an average of
42% annually. In 2021, planned capacity
in Norway alone doubled the 2020 figure,
representing the second largest planned
capacity across the Nordics after Denmark.
3. How do you think the Nordic market
will develop compared to the FLAP-Ds? Will
there be a “migration up north” movement
in the market? Especially in light of the
energy situation in Europe, would this
expedite any migration projects?
Nordic national markets are on an
upwards growth trajectory. The increase of
technological integration in recent years,
particularly during the pandemic, led to a
significant rise in IT capacity of newly built
facilities. This resulted in power constraints,
particularly in the larger markets such as
London, Amsterdam and Dublin. Whilst it
is too early to say which particular markets
will become more dominant, considering
what the region has on immediate
offer, the Nordics are well-placed to be
potential front runners in attracting foreign
investment and development.
datacentremagazine.com 99

HOW TO ESTABLISH A DATA
CENTRE IN NORWAY
Interview with Benedicte Fasmer Waaler
from Invest in Norway
Q: Norway is one of the few countries with
its own data centre strategy. How important
is this for the industry and potential clients?
A: A national data centre strategy shows an
overall commitment from the government
to develop and promote the data centre
industry. Our experience is that this is
appreciated – both by investors and
players in the data centre industry – at
home and abroad. The existence of a
data centre strategy is a strong signal that
there is a will to establish and maintain
a favourable business climate, including
a stable regulatory landscape for the
industry, in the years to come. This stability
INNOVATION NORWAY...
is important both from an investment and
from an operational perspective. The new
government continues to support the
previous government’s strategy.
Q: What are the different entry strategies
when looking to move your data centre
capacity to Norway?
A: The Norwegian data centre market
offers different solutions to suit different
requirements. Whether it means leasing
capacity from the Norwegian data centre
operators, setting up your own data centre
as a service, build-to-suit, ready-to-build,
100 June 2022
or even build your own data centre. The
Norwegian government is committed to
making this process as smooth as possible
and has provided an introduction guide
with references to more detailed resources
when needed. More Info
Q: How does Invest in Norway cooperate
with The Norwegian Datacenter Industry?
A: We welcomed the formation of the
business association Norwegian Data
Center Industry in June last year and are
pleased to see that it already represents
the voice of the industry towards the public
authorities and the market as such. In our
view, it is valuable that the association
rooms the whole data centre ecosystem,
from site developers, power providers,
communication service providers, and
equipment suppliers to the data centre
operators themselves. We cooperate
with the association in the international
marketing of Norway as a favourable and
sustainable data centre nation, either by
sponsoring marketing activities or by joint
marketing efforts towards an international
market. We also work with the association
to identify and market beneficial locations
in Norway for developing new and energy
intensive data centre projects.
 NORWEGIAN DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY
Monitoring the international
market and industry trends
The Norwegian Data Center Industry has
several plans lined up for the next 12 to 18
months. According to Rønning, “the most
important of these is to closely monitor
the international market to determine how
it can benefit the data centre operators
already located in Norway. It’s also to
see if it can create opportunities for new
projects to commit to the Norwegian
Market,” Rønning says.
“It’s essential to grow as an organisation,
to recruit more members, and expand the
already quite large ecosystem.” Moving
forward, his goal is to be the voice of the
Norwegian data centre sector that public
authorities listen to.
Looking toward future trends in the
industry, Rønning highlighted one in
particular: energy efficiency.
“I would expect to see many technical
solutions that would address this issue.
That would include everything from
exploring liquid cooling to having a more
effective solution for heat reuse. In rural
areas, the DC operators are already
working actively with projects like heating
greenhouses and fish farming projects.
We would see huge developments on the
sustainability side in terms of embedding
it in the total project how you operate
sustainably throughout the data centre’s
whole lifecycle.
Rønning also expects to see growth in
hyperscale installation, both in Norway
and other Nordic countries. “I think you
will see even more energy-efficient
technology and even larger installations
because we need to digitalise more,
which, in the end, is the key to becoming
more sustainable.”
ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION
Norwegian Data Center Industry is a neutral
business association and the voice of the
industry towards the market and public
authorities. We provide the most prominent
meeting place for the industry to network,
influence and promote the members of
the association. We are passionate on
spearheading sustainability and low TCO
among the key reasons why you should
establish your data centre or move your
workloads to Norway.
Our members represent the whole range
of players in the data centre ecosystem,
from site developers, builders, designers,
power providers, communication service
providers, equipment providers and data
centre operators.
Links to resources:
National Data Center Strategy
How to establish a data center in Norway
How Norway produces hydropower with
a minimal carbon footprint
Data Centers in Norway (in Norwegian)
Connectivity in Norway
Contact info:
Bjørn Rønning
Norwegian Data Center Industry
Oscarsgate 20, 0352 Oslo
Norway
Mobile: +4792242657
Mail: bjorn@datasenterindustrien.no
datacentremagazine.com 101
 Consultant research
shows that chips
– more commonly
seen in the tech
and automotive
industries – will soon
be making their way
into data centres
WRITTEN BY: SAM STEERS

102 June 2022


f you’ve been following the technology
or automotive industries lately, you’ll
have most likely heard of the 2021 chip
shortage, when businesses globally
were struggling to order SoCs due to
the ongoing fallout of COVID-19.
Thankfully, chip production is (somewhat)
returning to normal, although it’s not all guns
blazing quite yet. Other industries have been
taking note of the advantages of using SoCs,
including the data centre sector, with some
companies now offering bespoke chips and
circuitry. According to Mckinsey, though, if data
centres are going to reap the benefits of this,
it’s important to understand the use cases first.
TECHNOLOGY
Stephen Simpson, Senior Principal at
QuantumBlack, a McKinsey company,
points out that “hardware architectures have
used a combination of central processing
units (CPUs), memory, external storage,
and network in a uniform way”, adding
that the result of this has been restrictive
commodisation due to the “substantial
investment” that such innovation requires.
This has meant chip manufacturers lack the
incentives necessary to provide custom-
made solutions, nor do they have the ability
to outline specific use cases.
Simpson notes: “By taking a systems-
on-a-chip (SoC) approach, data centre
datacentremagazine.com 103
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 TECHNOLOGY

as Simpson explains,
the process requires
the identification,
assembly, and licensing
of all the patented
technologies needed
for a composite
design, which means
care needs to be
taken to ensure that
the integration of
hardware across
different vendors’
intellectual property
does not significantly
hinder performance.

“Organisations must carefully

evaluate their current cloud-
deployment architecture
and evaluate how to
computer manufacturers can
best harness new setups
now optimise performance, proposed by cloud vendors”
cost, and power consumption
simultaneously by tailoring the
STEPHEN SIMPSON
electronics to the needs of the FORMER PRINCIPAL DATA ARCHITECT
business and optimising the AT QUANTUM BLACK
design for specific calculations.
Several industries, such as
the data centre sector, have improved Today, however, these lower-cost design
performance by 15 to 20% while alternatives are licensed predominantly
significantly reducing cost and production on the ARM architecture, with the RISC-V
time for the fabrication of bespoke chips.” open-standard instruction set emerging as
a viable alternative. Both cloud vendors and
The challenges of commissioning chips specialised CPU and computer-hardware
Like all forays into new industries, there providers are taking advantage of this SoC
are challenges to overcome – namely, a approach for their traditional servers; by
legal one in the case of the companies innovating quickly, they are starting to
commissioning the chips. This is because, enjoy significant success.

datacentremagazine.com 105
 TECHNOLOGY

“By taking a systems-

on-a-chip (SoC)
approach, data centre
computer manufacturers
can now optimise
performance, cost, and
power consumption
simultaneously”
STEPHEN SIMPSON
FORMER PRINCIPAL DATA ARCHITECT
AT QUANTUM BLACK

SoCs are the new motherboard
According to Analytics India Magazine
(AIM), the majority of cloud providers
are turning to customised chips –
including Google Cloud, which referred
to SoCs as the ‘new motherboard’. In
2015, the company developed TPUs or
Tensor Processing Units, AI accelerator
application-specific integrated circuits
(ASICs) designed for neural network
machine learning, which became available
to third-party use in 2018. Google also
sold smaller versions of the chip.
Google’s TPUs have become a
powerhouse for a range of services including
real-time voice search, photo object
recognition, and interactive language
translation. According to Amin Vahdat from
Google Cloud, the tech giant prefers to
focus more on SoC designs where multiple
functions sit on the same chip or on multiple
chips inside one package, instead of
integrating components on a motherboard.
The company even claims that the ‘System-
on-Chips’ is the modern-day motherboard.
AWS is another cloud provider expressing
interest in the chip market. Last year,
the company launched custom-built
AWS Inferentia chips for the hardware
specialisation department. Inferentia’s
performance convinced AWS to deploy
them for their popular Alexa services,
which require machine learning to enable
functions such as speech processing.

106 June 2022

 Amazon’s EC2 instances are now powered
by AWS Inferentia chips that can deliver up to
30% higher throughput and up to 45% lower
cost per inference. By contrast, Amazon EC2
F1 instances use FPGAs to enable delivery of
custom hardware accelerations, according to
Analytics India Magazine.
Nevertheless, Stephen Simpson argues
that it is also important to address data-
intensive network communication latency, in
spite of promising innovation currently being
seen in the core data centre servers. He says
that the emerging trend is to “offload these
responsibilities – including encryption and
data loading – to a dedicated processing unit
that also provides advanced security and
accelerated data-movement capabilities”.

datacentremagazine.com 107
 TECHNOLOGY
A range of companies offer technologies
that differ considerably in terms of
sophistication and price points. These
technologies are usually positioned
as SmartNICs (wired networking and
computational resources on the same card
to offload tasks from server CPUs) and may
be based on field programmable gate array
(FPGA), application-specific integrated
circuit (ASIC), or SoC technology, and a data-
processing unit (DPU) – a specific type of
SoC – has also been employed in several
new chip designs.
108 June 2022
Simpson goes on to say: “Some products
go significantly further and offer important
capabilities in data-pipeline management
to significantly reduce network latency,
support inline crypto acceleration, enable
the highly secure ‘enclave’ isolation of
different organisations’ data sets, and
provide the ability to feed network data
directly into graphics processing units
(GPUs) for machine learning predictions.
Of course, the capabilities of these
devices need to match those of the next-
generation servers.
How is the semiconductor
industry coping with the
chip shortage?

Whilst semiconductor companies

have managed to increase
throughput of chips following the
pandemic, production levels are still
not out of the woods. Current lead times
can exceed four months, which can soon
become ten months if said product is
moved to another manufacturing site.
Changing manufacturer altogether can
add another 12 months at least, and some
chips contain manufacturer-specific
intellectual property that may require
alterations or licensing.

“Hardware architectures have should assess the cost

and timeline of these
used a combination of central contracts to optimise new

processing units (CPUs), technologies. Since the

hardware and possible
memory, external storage, and efficient solution of the

network in a uniform way”

STEPHEN SIMPSON
FORMER PRINCIPAL DATA ARCHITECT
AT QUANTUM BLACK
“Organisations must carefully evaluate
their current cloud-deployment architecture
and evaluate how to best harness new
setups proposed by cloud vendors based
on proprietary hardware. In addition, they
aforementioned use cases
now become available
as a service, leveraging
these new services when
encountering specific
optimisation problems will
be key,” he said.
In short, the cloud infrastructure industry
is changing everyday;it’s up to data centre
companies and cloud providers to make use
of the advantages offered by SoCs so that
they can keep up for years to come.

datacentremagazine.com 109
 TELEHOUSE FRANCE
PUTS MARSEILLE
ON THE GLOBAL
COMMS HUB MAP
WRITTEN BY:
SIMON
HOWSON-GREEN

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS
VAUGHAN

110 June 2022

TELEHOUSE FRANCE

datacentremagazine.com 111
 TELEHOUSE FRANCE

112 June 2022

Sami Slim CEO of Telehouse
France explains the business case
behind the company's new strategic
implementation as digital migration
surges and prices increase

T
he surge in digital migration
across the globe in the aftermath
of the pandemic comes at a
price, as well as a benefit. Sami
Slim, CEO of Telehouse France,
explains the business case behind his
company’s new data centre in Marseille and
why close collaboration with its partner,
Elco Systems, will mitigate its risks and
exploit its benefits.
Data centres are blossoming across the
globe; where you plant those blooms is vital.
It’s all about location, so you must get it right.
Here’s why:
Let’s assume you are a software designer
for a Munich-based German engineering
company, and you need to send information
to a client in Brazil about its mining operation
in the middle of a remote quarry miles from
anywhere. That information will travel across
the internet hubs in - let's say - Frankfurt,
then up to the U.S., down through Miami and
then to Sao Paulo.
So far, so good. That little packet of data
left home and arrived at its destination faster
than your eye moved from one word to the
next in this sentence. But… every little packet
of data costs money. That round trip from
Bavaria to Southwestern Brazil. It would
probably have more than 250 milliseconds
of latency. It arrived late.
That latency, according to Sami Slim, CEO
of Telehouse France, makes the software
those two companies are using “less useful
and less powerful”.

datacentremagazine.com 113
 TELEHOUSE FRANCE

“However,” says Sami, “By exploiting

internet routes off the coast of France
around Marseille, you can reduce this
latency. Opening up this route means you
can have a latency between Frankfurt and
Sao Paulo, for example, of fewer than one
hundred milliseconds — which is half the
existing speed from the U.S.”
The faster the speed of travelling data, the
more cost savings to your bottom line.
Sami has another compelling example
he uses to define the cost savings made
when connectivity is sped up – even by
mere milliseconds.
“Today, if you're an African enterprise
placed, let's say, in Ghana or Nigeria and
you need some cloud usage, you will go to
those high-profile hubs serving Africa, such
as London, Frankfurt or Paris. That comes at
a cost.
“But if you bring that location closer –
to Marseille – you will be saving 15% simply
because you are localising your cloud traffic

Telehouse France puts Marseille on

the global comms hub map

114 June 2022

 SAMI SLIM
TITLE: CEO
INDUSTRY: TELECOMMUNICATIONS/
DATA CENTRES/HUBS
LOCATION: FRANCE

Engineer, graduate of Telecom

SudParis and the University of
Michigan, Sami joined Telehouse in
2010 as a technical sales engineer.
For 3 years, he was at the heart
of Telehouse's data centre and
connectivity growth in France, before
joining the Telehouse Europe Strategy
Department in 2013. In 2014, he
became head of the sales department
in France before being appointed
CEO in 2022. In this role, his mission
is to accelerate Telehouse's growth,
helping the Group's customers
and prospects to improve their
interconnection capabilities. Sami
Slim brings to Telehouse a passion
for a free, neutral and open Internet.
His deep knowledge of the IT market
and his proximity to the Internet
players contribute
to consolidate
Telehouse's results,
and to
and bypassing that journey to those cities in earn him the
Northern Europe.” renewal of
EXECUTIVE BIO

Sami stresses that all businesses know the Group's

how expensive it is to move data across the confidence.
cloud. He claims some companies could
even have their data carriage costs once
Marseille comes on stream.
According to Sami, the potential unlocked
by those saved milliseconds changes the
way we use the internet. More online trading,
video, OTT streaming, gaming and real-time
DATA CENTER MONITORING

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about your data center
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Data Center Monitoring redefined by Elco and Telehouse
Small is beautiful and far more effective. This philosophy from Telehouse France is driving
its partnership programme. Elco Solutions is one of its most favoured collaborators.
Telehouse France and the German based
Elco Solutions have joined forces to design
and develop a new data centre hub in Paris,
France. Both companies say this will be a
‘game changer’ in terms of global connectivity.
The ‘Leon Frot’ Data Centre in the capital is the
latest collaboration between Telehouse France
and Elco. Elco Solutions is an innovator in the
Data Centre Vendor and Integration space.
Elco is also in the process of upgrading the
existing Telehouse France infrastructure at
its hubs. This partnership will allow Elco
Solutions to provide its specially adapted
power and environmental monitoring solution
for Telehouse France.
“Our focus alongside Telehouse France is all
about data centre co-location and data centre
management,’ says Wajdi Darmoul, Founder
and Managing Director of Elco Solutions.
“This collaboration helped us tremendously
to improve the way we work together, the
way we develop high quality software –
especially customer specific software for
monitoring all aspects of a data centre.
We developed a system that will help the
data centre managers to monitor their
infrastructure in real time. With this software
we can instantly aggregate data across
several dimensions in the data centre.
This provides real time insights into power
monitoring systems, power efficiency,
temperature, and humidity and so on.
“This allows us to quickly access the status
of the data centre. This is vital as it allows all
the stakeholders to see that the data centre
is moving towards its optimum operational
efficiency.
According to Sami Slim, Director at
Telehouse France the two companies have
been working closely together since 2020
and the arrangement is at the ‘sharp end’
of Tele House France’s declared intention
to work with smaller, nimbler technology
partners in its expansion programme.
“Elco fits the requirement perfectly,” says Slim.
“With its focus on high-quality measurement
equipment, compact branch circuits
monitoring systems and intuitive customer
specific user interface, Elco Solutions is a
reliable partner to meet the challenges in a
rapidly changing and dynamic data centre
market,” says Darmoul.
Learn more
data transfer, VR, AI — all become more
plausible to a greater number of people
and businesses.
“When you bridge that gap, reduce that
distance, you unlock new visitors that are
creating value, creating jobs and creating
companies,” says Sami.
This is why Telehouse France is building
its latest data centre in collaboration
118 June 2022
with partners such as Elco Systems in
Marseille. Sami says that Telehouse
France, which already has a significant
presence in Marseille, sees the city as
one of the most important data hubs
in Europe, in terms of location and its
business infrastructure. This, the company
predicts, will grow in importance over
the next five-to-ten years.

Why the South of France?
So, why is Marseille so well placed as a
data hub to spread out North, East, South
and West?
“Marseille is one of the fastest-growing
cities. Our mission is to build a new
platform that will open up access between
countries in Africa and the Middle East,
and between Asia and Europe.
TELEHOUSE FRANCE
“BY EXPLOITING INTERNET
ROUTES OFF THE COAST
OF FRANCE AROUND
MARSEILLE YOU CAN
REDUCE THIS LATENCY”
SAMI SLIM
CEO,
TELEHOUSE FRANCE
“We see Marseille as being uniquely
positioned in Europe to attract traffic
between Europe and a huge area of the rest
of the world.”
Telehouse France deemed Marseille as
the best-placed location to complement
the data traffic already running through
cities such as Frankfurt, London, Paris and
Amsterdam.
Sami explains it in very simple and logical
terms: “The position of Marseille offers
it direct access to some key undersea
systems coming not only from Asia and
Africa, but also from Latin America,” he says,
referring to these underwater ‘pipes’ as
“submarine systems”.
"The most important thing is that this
location is opening up channels between
Europe and the rest of the world, offering
the region new routes that didn't previously
exist," he says."And, of course, the benefits of
these new channels of communications are
two-way.”
“These routes are now the backbone of
the internet for billions of people because of
Marseille. 4.5 billion people connected with
faster and more reliable internet through
Marseille via fifteen submarine cables.”
Sami is very keen to make sure we all
understand that, when we speak of the
cloud and data storage, what we really mean
datacentremagazine.com 119
“WHEN YOU BRIDGE
THAT GAP, REDUCE THAT
DISTANCE, YOU UNLOCK
NEW VISITORS THAT
ARE CREATING VALUE,
CREATING JOBS AND
CREATING COMPANIES”

SAMI SLIM
CEO,
TELEHOUSE FRANCE

is physical buildings and cables — which are

very definitely earthbound.
“What most of us are missing is that 99%
of the Internet today is not in the cloud. It
is under the sea. This is what we call the
submarine system that is powering the
Internet today.
“Our traffic is in there, and most of the
Internet routes are deep in the ocean. This
is where cities such as Marseille have a great
geographic advantage in attracting that
traffic, with ‘breeding’ hubs to bring content
and users closer to each other.”
Put even more simply, this was an
opportunity Telehouse France could not let
slip through its fingers.

Monetising with a difference

Sami is keen to stress that the opportunities
for Telehouse France in this venture are in
no small part down to the way his company
is monetising its data centres in Marseille.
Although location is a huge factor in Telehouse
France’s strategy, property acquisition is not.
“The difference between Telehouse
France and the rest of the big players in
this industry is our approach. We are not
monetising our data centre based on the
number of square metres.

120 June 2022

 TELEHOUSE FRANCE

“We are monetising our business based on

the value we create for our customers within
their traffic strategy, and ensuring they get
close to their users and to their customers
with our technology. That's a fundamental
difference, we are not a real-estate player,
we are a connectivity player.”
And this, says Sami, is the blueprint for
the future when it comes to data centre
development.
Telehouse France was already reshaping
the data centre and connectivity business
back in the 1990s. It established large
data hubs in Paris and in London’s famous
Docklands.
“This created data hubs that attracted the
most traffic, the largest number of cables and
the widest variety of ecosystems,’ Sami says.
This is what he calls the company’s
‘Connectivity Strategy’: “It is making those
data centres really prominent on the map of
the internet today.”
“Today, London Docklands is the most
connected data centre in the world, and Paris
Voltaire is the fourth most connected hub on
the planet, routing more than 50% of all the
internet traffic in the country.
“This is our connectivity strategy – to make
our centres the heart of the telecoms world.”
Sami says his company is fundamentally
convinced that Europe will be the backbone
of the global Internet.
“Europe is in a perfect position,” he
says. “Geographically, for hosting both the
Southern hemisphere and the northern
hemisphere junction in terms of data. Europe
can connect the Nordic countries, the US,
Russia, China in the north, Africa, the Middle
East, and the countries of Latin America from
the south.
“That value can happen with a ‘backbone’
coming from Marseille, going up to Paris and
then diverting with two branches, East and

datacentremagazine.com 121
 TELEHOUSE FRANCE

“THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TELEHOUSE FRANCE AND

THE REST OF THE BIG PLAYERS IN THIS INDUSTRY IS
OUR APPROACH. WE ARE NOT A REAL-ESTATE PLAYER.
WE ARE NOT MONETISING OUR DATA CENTRE BASED
ON THE NUMBER OF SQUARE METRES”
SAMI SLIM
CEO,
TELEHOUSE FRANCE

122 June 2022

West: one to London and the other one
to Frankfurt.
“That is the map of the future of the
Internet, and that’s why we think Europe will
be fundamental for the future of the Internet,
and that is also why we're investing heavily.”
Data Centres are a hot topic
However, things have been moving fast since
Telehouse France first built its data centres
in the 1990s. Data traffic grows exponentially
day-by-day and, with that explosion in usage,
comes potential risks and consequences
that need to be monitored and managed.
This is where Telehouse France’s strong
partnership with the German-based Elco
Systems comes in.
Sami says he is committed to working
with smaller, nimbler, and highly-
responsive partners; Elco more than met
those requirements.
“We are determined to remove our
dependency on large vendors in our strategy.
Using a range of smaller vendors means we
datacentremagazine.com 123
have far greater control over the end-user or
customer experience. This is important to us.
Elco is a perfect example of this,” says Sami.
“Elco is exactly the kind of vendor we like
to have around us when we build our data
centres. In designing our European business,
we wanted European players around us.
Why? Because that gives our company and
our customers a sense of security that we
will deliver.
“Elco hardware and software business.
This allows us to be far more modular in
terms of choice and that gives us the
control over the customer experience.”

“Elco is an innovative solution that enables
our data centre managers to monitor the
health and energy of each branch circuit,
gaining gain real-time insights about our data
centre environment conditions,” says Sami.
Elco monitors the way Telehouse France’s
data centres are running. In these worrying
TELEHOUSE FRANCE
times, when cyber-attack is a greater threat
than ever, anticipating unusual activity is
vital. There is, however, another byproduct of
powerful data centres that Elco monitors for
Telehouse France, which also explains why
the Telehouse team is so keen on working
with Elco.
“Data storage, data traffic, data transfer …
all these processes equal heat.”
Sami explains: “So, usually, when you
choose an electrical or cooling component
of a data centre, it comes with its own
measurement and efficiency control
through hardware and software. The
downside is that it locks you in with that
particular vendor, preventing you from
developing your own customer experience
in terms of portal or usage.
“The great gain, when we chose Elco,
is that we got the liberty of having our
own software for a customer experience
on the one side, but also we could choose
any type of hardware on the downside of
the chain. Elco sits neatly into the more
open option for us,” Sami says choosing
Elco was not just about its technology.
It also needed to be a cultural fit.
“We are in the business of ‘speed to
market’,” says Sami.
“So, the faster you can get the data
centre up and running, the better off you
are. To do that, you need to build a team
with your vendor. So the spirit, the culture,
the way they work with your own team
is a key component in which vendor
you choose.
“Elco has been excellent with us in our
teams. They have joined forces with us
and have understood all of our constraints
country by country. This is so valuable.”
datacentremagazine.com 125
 TOP 10

126 June 2022


Innovative
Data Centre
CEOs
Who are the strategic leaders of these
centralised repositories of information;
that store, process, and distribute huge
volumes of data for clients?

D
WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK

ata centre CEOs are all heavily invested in

reducing carbon in digital infrastructure
materials, products and power, but there
are many other priorities that require a
culture of innovation to tackle. Those on
this list are leading the charge as they look to protect
critical information and data, stay reliable and available
at all times and create adaptable physical infrastructure
to ready their organisations for the rise of IoT.
As the volume, scale and complexity of the data
centre environment continues to pose a challenge
at every turn, these CEOs are at the forefront of an
increasingly connected world.

datacentremagazine.com 127
 TOP 10

Rob Roy
10

CEO & Founder

Switch

A recognised world leader in

data centre ecosystem design,
development, and mission-
critical CDC (change data capture)
operations, Rob Roy is the CEO
and Founder of Switch. Roy has
not only designed the largest,
most advanced technology
ecosystems in the world, but his
stamp of innovation and attention
to detail can be witnessed across
many sectors including robotics,
storage, software development,
architecture and design. Roy’s
standard of excellence and
leadership is visible throughout
Switch and the technology industry.
Dr. Béla
09
Waldhauser
CEO
KDDI
Dr. Béla Waldhauser is Chief
Executive Officer of Telehouse
Deutschland GmbH. Since April
2014, he has been responsible
for the operational business of
KDDI and Telehouse in Germany.
KDDI, a Fortune Global 500
company and one of Asia's largest
telecommunications providers,
has a proven global track record of
high-quality service delivery. KDDI
provides a multitude of services,
including mobile phone services,
fixed-line communication, and
data centres.

128 June 2022

 Eyjólfur Magnús
08

Kristinsson
CEO
atNorth

Icelandic high-density computing

firm atNorth is leading the charge
for carbon-neutral data centres.
CEO Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson
07
says: “We specialise in energy-
hungry workloads that require
a lot of cooling – typically these
workloads include things like high-
performance computing, artificial
intelligence, deep learning, big
data and so on. We take care
of everything within the high-
performance computing and
artificial intelligence (AI) arena
with on-demand computational
resources.”
Jun Sawada
President and CEO
NTT Global
Data Centres
Jun Sawada is a Japanese
businessman, President and
Chief Executive Officer of Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone, the
third largest telecommunications
company in the world in terms of
revenue, since June 2018. As a top
5 global technology and business
solutions provider, NTT’s diverse
teams operate in 80+ countries and
regions, delivering services to over
190 of them. They serve over 80%
of Fortune Global 100 companies,
as well as thousands of other clients
and communities around the world.

datacentremagazine.com 129
Modular Design for
a Diverse World
eStruxture Delivers Flexibility
Vertiv solutions, including the Vertiv™ Liebert® DSE economization system,
allow eStruxture to bring equipment online faster and support the unique
service level requirements of its customers.

Read the Case Study

 TOP 10

Jean-Pascal

05
Tricoire
Chairman and CEO
Schneider Electric

Jean-Pascal Tricoire has been with

Schneider Electric since 1986 when
he joined the company as Project
Manager. Since then, he has held
other roles in the company, such
Marcos Peigo
06

as Commercial Director China,

CEO Executive Vice President of the
Scala Data Centers Asia Pacific, Middle East Africa,
and South America regions. He
became the company’s Chairman
and CEO in 2006. Schneider
A seasoned leader, Marcos Peigo Electric was named as the world's
is the current CEO of Scala Data most sustainable corporation by
Centers, a hyperscale data centre Corporate Knights, out of more
platform based in the region of Latin than 8,000 other companies
America. Peigo is also the Operating assessed for the 2021 Global 100.
Partner for Digital Bridge, the parent
company of Scala. His previous
experience includes Chairman
of the Board at Modular Data
Centers, and Founder and Partner
of Lemniscata Ventures. He holds
three degrees: Telecommunications
Engineering from the Universidade
São Francisco, and Electrical
Engineering and Economics from
the Pontifícia Universidade Católica
de São Paulo.

datacentremagazine.com 131
 TOP 10

“At my first board meeting with Ark, I simply

said, ‘Look guys, why don't we – as a joint
ambition – set about creating the company
we all always wanted to work for?’”

Huw Owen
04

CEO
Ark Data Centres

03
Huw Owen joined Ark Data
Centres in 2012, following a year-
long stint as President of BT Global
Health. He has also been the CEO
of the Atlas Consortium and a
United Nations advisor for Central
Asia. “At my first board meeting
with Ark, I simply said, ‘Look guys,
why don't we – as a joint ambition
– set about creating the company
we all always wanted to work
for?’,” reveals Owen. “It has proved
to be the best way of finding our
true north.”
Todd Coleman
Founder, President & CEO
eStruxture
Data Centers
With 25+ years experience
in the IT, data centre and
telecommunications industries,
Todd Coleman is proud of a
workforce that’s more than 50%
diverse in some way, something
that leadership at eStruxture
continues to strive towards to
best serve 1500+ customers that
depend on their infrastructure and
customer support.
“That culture shift starts at the
top and if you start showing that
your actions and words align, the
rest of the organisation embraces
it and it begins to take a life of
itself,” said Coleman.
 TOP 10

Bill Stein
CEO & Director
Digital Realty Trust

A. William Stein (Bill) is not only Digital Before being named CEO in 2014,
Realty’s CEO, but also serves on its Stein served as Chief Financial Officer
Board of Directors. and Chief Investment Officer. He has
Under Stein’s leadership, Digital over 30 years of leadership experience
Realty has executed a series of at a wide variety of companies.
transformational transactions that have
sharpened the company’s strategic
focus and significantly enhanced its
02
product offerings. Stein has overseen
a quadrupling of the company’s total
enterprise value, as well as its inclusion
in the S&P 500 Index.
Digital Realty states: “The most
important currency exchanged between
enterprises and their customers is
digital trust. As the on-going surge of
information accelerates, so too does the
need for secure data exchange across
the world.”
First established in 2004, Digital
Realty Trust is built on the foundation of
digital trust with core values shaped by
Customer Focus, Teamwork, and Results.

datacentremagazine.com 133
 7 - 8 SEPT 2022
STREAMED & IN PERSON
BUSINESS DESIGN CENTRE, LONDON

SHAPING THE
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Get tickets Sponsor opportunities

A BizClik Media Group Event:

 Watch our 2022 Showreel

Join us at SUSTAINABILITY
LIVE LONDON
Showcase your values, products From keynote addresses to lively roundtables,
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 TOP 10

136 June 2022


Charles J. Meyers
President & CEO
Equinix
M
eyers is responsible for leading
Equinix’s strategy and innovation,
with a continued track record of
growth, execution and service excellence.
He partners with more than 10,000
Equinix colleagues around the world to
be in service to one another as well as the
customers, partners, shareholders and
communities in which Equinix operates.
Meyers has shaped the company’s
strategy and continued industry
leadership, including doubling the number
of global IBX data centres, evolving the
TOP 10
capabilities of Platform Equinix, building
ecosystems with thousands of the world’s
leading businesses as customers, and
quadrupling revenues during his tenure.
Equinix recently added four new
data centres in the growing technology
hub of Santiago in Chile. Through Entel,
it provides an opportunity for local
businesses and multinational companies
to accelerate their digital transformation,
while solidifying Equinix's position as the
largest provider of digital infrastructure
services in the region.
datacentremagazine.com 137
138 June 2022
MASTER POWER
TECHNOLOGIES
AND DIGITAL
PARKS AFRICA
AD FEATURE
WRITTEN BY:
İLKHAN ÖZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS
VAUGHAN

datacentremagazine.com 139
 MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES

Master Power Technologies

(Africa) and Digital Parks Africa
(South Africa) are transforming the
Data Centre environment through
data and regional development.

T
here is something important
happening in the Africa Data
Centre world. “We are the
biggest Data Centre (DC) support
company in Africa for overall
turnkey solutions,” establishes Menno
Parsons, CEO of Master Power Technologies.
“No other company on the African
continent offers what we do in such a
true turnkey fashion. Our offerings range
from UPS, generators, boards, automation,
modular DCs, monitoring & control systems
and their hardware, Tier III & IV DCs and
all their support services (such as site
engineers and technicians) in one business
service offering.
“This is why we’re successful; this is why
our clients stay with us.”
Menno Parsons studied Electrical
Engineering at the University of Port
Elizabeth and worked for Siemens before
establishing Master Power Technologies
(MPT) in 1999. Since then, he has created
and been at the helm of MPT — a company
recognised for its effective, comprehensive
DC services across the entire African
continent. MPT is “in Africa, for Africa”.
As one of the most extensive and most
successful turnkey DC providers on the
continent specialising in design, build and
managed services, MPT believes that data
drives the digital economy and that access
to data should be a basic human right.

140 June 2022

We do
UPTIME Example of
an image caption

datacentremagazine.com 141
 Originally, MPT began as a UPS company
that grew into a complete DC solutions
provider. They intend to play a key role in
enabling African economies through scalable
DC solutions, where data can be economically
distributed to drive sustainable growth. They
have already won four Frost & Sullivan awards,
demonstrating their ability to provide industry-
leading solutions to the African continent.
142 June 2022
“Besides just generating local revenue, we
are committed to local skills development.
For this reason, when we build a DC in any
African country, we incorporate and empower
as many locals as possible throughout the
journey, which may potentially lead to
permanent employment of local content,”
says Rory Reid, Head of Department for Data
Centres at MPT. “Our DC handover extends
 MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES

MENNO PARSONS
TITLE: CEO
INDUSTRY:TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
LOCATION: SOUTH AFRICA

Menno Parsons founded Master

Power Technologies in 1999, a
critical power and Data Centre solutions
provider that brings innovative and
quality solutions to the market. Menno
has led the company to evolve from an
entity selling solely UPS systems to the
largest turnkey Data Centre solutions
provider on the continent. Master
Power Technologies has a footprint
in 16 African countries and provides
critical infrastructure remote monitoring
solutions to over 150 sites. The company
received 4 Frost and Sullivan Data
Centre Leadership Awards, a testimony
of its excellence in Africa's Data Centre
market. Menno has a deep understanding
of client’s often harsh working
environments and matches those
conditions to world leading products to
give customers the competitive edge
EXECUTIVE BIO

needed to succeed in their markets. He

is Proudly South African and dedicated
to developing the continent with local
content and resources. In addition, he
is known for his passion for empowering
and developing young individuals and
professionals.
 MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES
beyond delivering only a site; we continue
to support our clients in areas such as
operations, maintenance, remote monitoring
or whatever it may be, for that DC.”
Reid has a lengthy electrical industry
background where he has witnessed the
invariable link between economic growth
and data. He now leads the DC business as
Head of Department to support the massive
increase in demand on the continent.
MPT provides brick-and-mortar, modular,
and prefabricated data centre solutions. They
are a trusted, true turnkey provider, supplying
clients with the best-in-class solutions to suit
their needs and environments.
MPT is not a one-size-fits-all operation;
their priority is to work closely with clients
and ensure that they are provided with
the best, redundant and most reliable
144 June 2022
solutions explicitly catered to their unique
requirements. In addition, MPT has forged
strong partnerships with the big critical power
OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)
and is the sole supplier for many in the region.
“We do not just deliver a site and then
disappear,” says MPT’s Parsons. “We provide
exceptional after-sales support, particularly
because we intimately understand the
particular challenges of the DC environments
in Africa. Many global players adapt
and design their DCs specifically to the
environments they are accustomed to,
but that which works for one environment
doesn’t necessarily translate into being fit
for another. It’s a question of familiarity
and expertise.” says MPT’s Reid. “With
over 20 years of experience in the region,
we understand the issues distinctive to
 MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES

OUR DC HANDOVER EXTENDS

BEYOND DELIVERING ONLY A SITE
RORY REID
TITLE: HOD: DATA CENTRES
INDUSTRY:TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
LOCATION: SOUTH AFRICA

Rory Reid joined Master Power

Technologies in 2014 as the Sales
and Marketing Manager and has over
7 years' experience in the Data Centre
industry. Rory delivers best-in-class
data centre solutions to a portfolio
of global clients and is involved with
site audits to assist clients to identify
improvements which could be made
around reliability, efficiency, and
EXECUTIVE BIO

redundancy of the complete system.

Prior to joining Master Power
Technologies, Rory spent over 16 years
leading sales and project management
teams within the electrical and power
industry. He successfully completed
his Uptime Institute Tier Designer
Accreditation in December 2020.
DIGITAL PARKS AFRICA

JACQUES DE JAGER
TITLE: CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
INDUSTRY: IT SERVICES
LOCATION: SOUTH AFRICA

Jacques has a strong technical

background and is currently
responsible for all Data Centre
operation at Digital Parks Africa.
Prior to joining Digital Parks Africa,
Jacques spent nine years in IT
management for the electrical
engineering and telecommunications

EXECUTIVE BIO
industries. Armed with over a decade
of Enterprise Networking, Information
Technology Security, and Data
Centre Infrastructure Management
experience, Jacques successfully
fulfils the role of Chief Information
Officer at Digital Parks Africa.

AFRICA
CAN’T GROW
WITHOUT DC
TECHNOLOGY
Africa and the environment. We treat each
client on a case-by-case basis, making for
successful projects and satisfied clients.”
Alongside providing end-to-end solutions
from site inspection to planning, design
and construction to onsite-commissioning,
remote monitoring, and after-delivery
services, MPT probably has the largest Uptime
accredited team on the continent, including
10 Uptime Accredited Tier Design engineers —
of which their CEO, Menno Parsons, is one.
In terms of their reach, MPT is building
and providing turnkey data centres solutions
across the entire continent — including
in South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Djibouti,
Madagascar, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania,
Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe,
Botswana, Senegal, Ghana, Congo, DRC,
Angola, and Namibia to name a few.
The Data Centre market in Africa is
snowballing, and the necessity of reliable
and resilient DC services and solutions has
become critical to the continent’s digital
development. MPT supports the ever-
growing demands and is the most prominent
DC builder in Africa. One of its most recent
projects was designing and building Africa’s
largest modular DC, Digital Parks Africa
(DPA).
DPA is one of South Africa’s most resilient,
carrier-neutral hyperscale DCs, that targets
colocation, enterprise and hyperscale
clients. It provides world-class DC services
with unrestricted interconnection between
clients, thus, offering better value, lower
latency, and higher resilience DC solutions.
MPT and DPA are two distinct companies
that work in close collaboration to meet
the growing demands for large-scale data
services, hosting, and DC operations. Both
are effective operators in the DC world, and
they contend with similar considerations and
have common problems for which to offer
solutions, albeit in different ways.
When most clients hear the term ‘DC
Flexibility’, they tend to only think about
redundancy and tier classifications, but
true flexibility should also be reflected in
a business model strategy.
True business flexibility is a holistic
attribute, and Menno Parsons clearly has it
in abundance and is recognised for it across
Africa and beyond its borders. On this very
point, Parsons says: “For some of our projects
across Africa, our Telco clients noted that
they would rather operationalise some of
their expenses than investing further Capex.
This was a big turning point and marked the
establishment of Digital Parks Africa.”
“In a developed world, you don’t notice the
massive impact of technology challenges,”
says Jacques de Jager, Chief Operations
Officer at Digital Parks Africa (DPA).
“Nevertheless, Africa has its challenges, and
datacentremagazine.com 147
 DIGITAL PARKS AFRICA

they are not all, obviously technology-related.”

Speaking from DPA, de Jager says:
“Unfortunately, many parts in South Africa
are underdeveloped, leading to various
challenges such as increased cost of living,

WE ARE
unusual power outages and transportation
issues. Luckily, the digital world’s
empowerment through connectivity solves
many of these problems.
“At DPA, digitally, we are on the move, and
IN AFRICA,
our goal is to bring content to and educate
consumers at high speeds. We are involved FOR AFRICA
in many social development programs, as
the link between development and data, is
inseparable. I believe that this will be a big MENNO PARSONS
CEO,
differentiator for the African continent. We MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES
want to make an impact in South Africa, both & DIGITAL PARKS AFRICA
technologically and socio-economically, and
we are already well on our way — living our
slogan ‘The Digital Heartbeat of Africa’.”
Jacques de Jager‘s career started in the

148 June 2022

information and communications field,
focusing on Enterprise and IT-space type
deployments and management thereof.
He moved on to work for enterprise
companies, managing their IT environments
in the DC space. De Jager is currently Chief
Operations Officer at Digital Parks Africa
(DPA) which is now one of South Africa’s
fastest growing DCs.
MPT and DPA play very important roles in
developing and connecting Africa. “There’s
a lot of talent in Africa,” says DPA’s de
Jager. “I think that DPA can play a big role in
developing both the local regions and the
community and providing opportunities to
share insights and visions while adding value
to the industry.”
De Jager believes that “Africa can’t grow
without DC technology”. Simply stated,
digitisation directly translates into economic
growth, and the more digital services and
operations that are channelled towards this
goal, the more likely it is to be achieved.
DPA might be the new kid on the block,
but it brings about a scalable environment
and a bona fide ability to grow alongside
rapid technological changes and
advancements. With reliable infrastructure in
place, it is no surprise that DPA is already one
of the most resilient DCs on the continent.
Offering a remarkable, secure, and
sustainable ecosystem for data-hungry
technologies and ICT infrastructure, DPA
provides flexible, high-power-density,
ranging from 3-15kW per rack - which is
phenomenal for South Africa.
DPA is the perfect solution for companies
who want to convert their Capex into
OPEX (Operating Expense). The facility is
Uptime Tier III Design (level 1) Certified
and offers concurrent maintainability and
fault tolerance, with 2(N+1) redundancy.
datacentremagazine.com 149
 99.999%
DPA is currently undergoing Uptime Tier IV
construct certification for its first of three
phases (in Level 3) to guarantee the highest
level of reliability.
DPA is built around best business
practices, compliance, and maintains an
Uptime and our internationally certified infrastructure.
capacity Utility is Certifications include ISO 9001:2015, ISO
27001:2013, PCI-DSS and data privacy

24MVA
compliance. Furthermore, DPA is equipped
with armed guards, 24/7 CCTV coverage,
biometric access, vehicle trap, on-and-
offsite Network Operating Centre managed

150 June 2022

 MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES

WE ARE THE
BIGGEST DATA
CENTRE (DC)
SUPPORT
COMPANY
IN AFRICA
FOR OVERALL
TURNKEY
SOLUTIONS
MENNO PARSONS
CEO,
MASTER POWER TECHNOLOGIES
& DIGITAL PARKS AFRICA

communications infrastructure, which DPA

to provide clients with enhanced security
and reliability.
“DPA adopts modern technologies
and energy-efficient backup power
infrastructure that guarantees an uptime
of 99.999%. The facility, which has a Utility
capacity of 24MVA, has been purpose-
designed to quickly scale up to meet
customer demands, in line with its
commitment to grow the South Africa
Data Centre market. Besides the obvious
needs of the digital economy, Industry
4.0 also requires a robust technological
can provide,” concludes de Jager.
“DPA is a proudly South African company,
backed by an exceptional team of experts,
including six Uptime Accredited Operations
Specialists. We are privileged to play a part
in the digital economy enabling companies
to succeed in their digital transformation
programmes," says Menno Parsons.
MASTER POWER
TECHNOLOGIES
DIGITAL PARKS AFRICA

datacentremagazine.com 151




WRITTEN BY:
CATHERINE
GRAY

LEWIS

PRODUCED BY:

VAUGHAN

152 June 2022

 GULF DATA HUB

Establishing
sustainable
data centres
in the
Middle East
datacentremagazine.com 153
Himmath
Mohammed
Head of Sales
and Strategies,
Gulf Data Hub

154 June 2022

 GULF DATA HUB

As the data centre market continues

to grow in the Middle East, Himmath
Mohammed explains how GDH are
leading the way for colocation providers

O
ffering first-of-its-kind
Data Centres in the Middle
East, Gulf Data Hub (GDH)
is looking to transform
the region with innovative
data hubs as the market
continues going from strength-to-strength.
Expanding its worldwide presence, GDH
provides purposefully built centres that
offer customers a resilient environment
from hosting, disaster and workplace
recovery, cloud platforms, and connectivity
to its core colocation.
In the eight years since its founding, GDH
has grown massively, competing with some
of the largest names and biggest brands in
the industry. Himmath Mohammed, who
is Head of Sales and Strategies, as well as
being a key member of the company, is
dedicated to ensuring that customers know
GDH offer best-in-class services.
“We assure customers as they know
their data is 100% protected. There will
be no downtime, the equipment will be
always taken care of with the utmost care,
with all power cooling and all international
standards of connectivity. Since 2014 until
today GDH has 100% SLA compliance which
itself is a major achievement.”
Differing from the data centre market in
the West, the Middle East is not as large or
mature as its Western counterpart.
Mohammed explains that, as GDH looks
to lead the market while it continues to

datacentremagazine.com 155
 GULF DATA HUB
Establishing sustainable data
Titleinof
centres the
the video East
Middle
“WE ASSURE CUSTOMERS, AS THEY KNOW
THEIR DATA IS 100% PROTECTED. THERE
WILL BE NO DOWNTIME, THE EQUIPMENT
WILL BE ALWAYS TAKEN CARE OF WITH
THE UTMOST CARE, WITH ALL POWER
COOLING AND ALL INTERNATIONAL
STANDARDS OF CONNECTIVITY”
HIMMATH MOHAMMED
HEAD OF SALES & STRATEGIES,
GULF DATA HUB
grow, there are a number of obstacles
that the organisation faces – particularly
as the resources are more limited: “The
major challenges are around measuring the
performance of data centres, ensuring that
the data centre uptime is always available,
and complying with the SLAs of our
customers. These are the major challenges
we foresee, especially as this region isn't as
mature as Europe or the US. In the Middle
156 June 2022
East, you have only one source
and one grid. So, you have to
optimise your operations in such
a way as to compensate for these
shortfalls of availability; you have
to compensate with your design,
with your operations so that
they should not interfere in the
provision of your services.”
“After maturing into eight
years in this field and in this
market, we see that there
are a lot of shortfalls in the
different ecosystems of data centres. One
of the major challenges is international
connectivity and exchange hubs, which
are not available in the way they are in the
mature markets,” he adds.
With this lack of resources, GDH could
potentially have its capital expenditure
affected, but Mohammed outlines the
innovative ways GDH looks to avoid this,
while also providing its customers with the
datacentremagazine.com 157
 GULF DATA HUB

TAREK AL ASHRAM
TITLE: CEO
COMPANY: GULF DATA HUB
INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
LOCATION: DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Tarek is the pioneer of

launching and introducing
Interactive TV services across MENA
way back in 2002.
Tarek has launched leading
Media and voice over services for
many TV channel productions.
Self-made and self-funded,
he has launched many innovative
services in Middle East .
As a man of vision he foresaw
the Data Center Market in 2012
and launched Gulf Data Hub which
has todate delivered world class
services in Middle East Market.

“OUR GOAL IS TO PROVIDE A WORLD CLASS

CARRIER AND VENDOR-NEUTRAL DATA
CENTRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. MAINTAINING
NEUTRALITY WILL INCREASE THE
CUSTOMER SPECTRUM, ALLOWING
GULF DATA HUB TO BECOME THE
REGION’S FIRST-CHOICE FACILITY
TO STORE COMPANIES’ MISSION
EXECUTIVE BIO

CRITICAL EQUIPMENT”

TAREK AL ASHRAM
CEO, GULF DATA HUB
solutions they need: “We have to be prepared
at a design level and the MEP/Operations
level. Even though there isn't a dual power
supply, in-house we have prime generators,
with both diesel and fuel available so that our
generators – even if there is downtime from
a utility – are capable of operating 24/7, 365
days. So, we have built such a system that we
are not dependent on one source. Now, we
provide a one-stop-shop where customers
can host and interconnect their primary and
DR sites or any multiple locations, giving
them connectivity within the region and
across the globe.”

Driving forward sustainable

data centres in the Middle East
Not only is GDH innovating in a less developed
market to ensure it provides the best possible
colocation services, but it is also exploring
the world of renewable energy to align
itself with global sustainability targets.
Mohammed explains: “Especially with
international regulations of carbon footprints
and net-zero coming into law, everybody's
looking for sustainable alternatives – this is
even one of the requirements from some of
our major customers, who ask, ‘How are you
planning for sustainable data centres?’ So,
we always look for new opportunities. Yes,
renewable energy is still in the initial stages in
the Middle East. Yes, there are solar and other
renewable energy plants coming up but they
are not yet available for commercial use. GDH
always explore innovative energy solutions
like immersion cooling. All that stuff is being
discussed but is not yet available in the market
on a commercial level.”
On top of the exploration into renewables
with sources such as solar and nuclear power,
GHD also looks to implement low-level
sustainable solutions, which is already part of
the company’s portfolio.

datacentremagazine.com 159
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“NOW, WE PROVIDE A ONE-
STOP-SHOP WHERE CUSTOMERS
CAN HOST AND THEY CAN
INTERCONNECT THEIR PRIMARY
AND DR SITES OR ANY MULTIPLE
LOCATIONS, WHICH GIVES THEM
CONNECTIVITY WITHIN THE
REGION AND ACROSS THE GLOBE”
HIMMATH MOHAMMED
HEAD OF SALES & STRATEGIES,
GULF DATA HUB
One solution that GDH is pushing to
become commercially viable is immersion
cooling, which would result in a significant
reduction in energy consumption, with some
predicting it will account for a 25% overall
reduction in a data centre's carbon footprint.
By redesigning data centre air management,
GDH will be able to prevent re-circulation of
hot air from IT systems.
“This is still in the testing phase in the
region; it's not commercially rolled out. So,
GULF DATA HUB
immersion cooling is for sure coming in
to stay here, and it will drastically change
power consumption and dependency on
fossil fuels in the data centre business,”
adds the Head of Sales and Strategies.
Another key solution GDH are
looking into is artificial intelligence (AI),
which will support the organisation
with the cooling solutions it is keen to
put in place, as Mohammed explains:
“We want to create effective cooling
methods that use the air outside. This
reduces energy costs by 40 percent!
Maybe unknowingly, we are cooling certain
equipment that doesn’t require much
cooling, but AI can identify this for us. So
this AI system, once deployed in our data
centres, will give us a lot of data where
we can efficiently manage our power
consumption and can efficiently manage
our cooling systems, which will help our
overall efficiency.”
datacentremagazine.com 161
 GULF DATA HUB
Aiming to implement this at different levels,
GDH is looking to AI to support the company
with preventive and corrective maintenance.
Using data collected from its centres and
machinery, GDH will be able to be more
proactive with its maintenance activities,
ultimately reducing expenditure.
“On top of that, we are looking towards AI
that can give you the failure rate of certain
equipment. We hope this will help us predict if
and when there will be a failure in our chiller or
a failure in our transformer. There are a lot of
different ways data will help us in optimising
facility management,” says Mohammed.
GDH’s ambitious expansion plans
Not only do GDH have ambitious
technological and sustainability goals,
162 June 2022
but the company is
also embarking upon a
significant expansion plan.
There’s no doubt that
the pandemic caused a
rapid uptake in the need for
data centre facilities. Data
centre growth has been driven by increased
company awareness of the benefits that cloud
services can provide and increased pressure
from the boards to provide more secure,
robust IT environments, along with the setup
of local data centres across the world.
According to Deloitte, the need for
colocation facilities will only grow as more
and more companies look to bolster their IT
capabilities; for GDH, the uptake was more
than ten times what it predicted.
“WE ARE LOOKING TOWARDS AI THAT HIMMATH MOHAMMED
CAN GIVE YOU THE FAILURE RATE TITLE: HEAD OF SALES & STRATEGIES
OF CERTAIN EQUIPMENT. WE HOPE
COMPANY: GULF DATA HUB
THIS WILL ENABLE US TO PREDICT IF
AND WHEN THERE WILL BE A FAILURE INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
IN OUR CHILLER OR A FAILURE IN LOCATION: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
OUR TRANSFORMER”
Himmath Mohammed is a
versatile and comprehensive
HIMMATH MOHAMMED
HEAD OF SALES & STRATEGIES, leader with experience in
GULF DATA HUB managing and delivering ICT
solutions. Throughout his career,
Mohammed has delivered
sustainable revenue gains in
emerging and mature business
markets. The Head of Sales and
Strategy has demonstrated success
in managing, planning, programme
leadership, product strategies,
and alliances. Mohammed has
hands-on experience in a full range
of business operations, including:
sales, marketing, engineering, quality
assurance, training and support.
He has also established strategy,
methodologies, product, support, &
service offerings. Mohammed is an
enthusiastic team professional with
a passion and dedication
for customer care,
identifying trends
“High availability of IT is required for the and solving business
businesses to keep on running. So obviously, opportunities
EXECUTIVE BIO

it can't be on-prem because if it is on-prem, through bespoke

the IT team has to be there, they have to solutions and strategic
monitor. So, everybody is going colocation partnerships.
or on the cloud. And again, the cloud has to
reside somewhere, which is often in the data
centre. All the cloud platforms, whether it's
Microsoft or AWS or Google, have to reside
somewhere in a facility. That's what we
provide,” says Mohammed.
 GULF DATA HUB

“OUR PLAN IN THE NEXT

12 TO 18 MONTHS IS
TO AT LEAST MULTIPLY
OUR CAPACITIES BY
THREE- OR FOUR-FOLD,
WHICH IS ALREADY
IN THE PIPELINE. WE
ARE ROLLING OUT
IN BAHRAIN, WE ARE
ROLLING OUT MULTIPLE
DATA CENTRES IN
SAUDI, KUWAIT,
MOROCCO AND EGYPT”

HIMMATH MOHAMMED
HEAD OF SALES & STRATEGIES,
GULF DATA HUB

“This has driven a lot of push, especially

with government entities releasing a law
stating that, whatever data of any company,
their data should reside within the country.
So earlier, the data was being hosted on
the cloud and the cloud was in a different
country. Now, though, the push is to bring
back that data into each country – which
means, if such data is coming back into this
country, then all these business entities
bringing back their data need to host it in a
purpose-built data centre. This means there
is a huge demand to build infrastructure
in the coming few years in an advanced
manner,” he adds.

164 June 2022

 With these new regulations and the high
demand for data centres, GDH recognises
the need to grow both quickly and
sustainably. To deal with this short timeline,
the company has signed a framework
agreement with its vendors and partners to
ensure it has a commitment from its supply
chain, in terms of the delivery of equipment
to facilitate this expansion.
Concluding, Mohammed explains how
the future for GDH is heavily focused
on this expansion: “Our plan is to invest
US$1bn in the the next 12 to 18 months
to multiply our capacities three- or four-
fold, which is already in the pipeline. We
are rolling out in Bahrain, we are rolling
out multiple data centres in Saudi, Kuwait,
Morocco and Egypt. We are implementing
this because there is a huge demand,
especially with artificial intelligence,
automated cars, augmented reality, and
gaming platforms coming in, which are
driving huge data centre requirements.
We see there is a lot of demand coming in
the future, so we are trying to multiply our
operations and projects four-fold.”
datacentremagazine.com 165
Going beyond
Belgium, with
eyes on FLAP
WRITTEN BY:
İLKHAN ÖZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS VAUGHAN

166 June 2022

datacentremagazine.com 167
 DATACENTER UNITED

Friso Haringsma,
Managing Director of
DataCenter United, talks
DC expansion, work culture
and why local problems
require local solutions

W
ith the recent
acquisition of another
three data centres
(DCs) across several
regions, DataCenter
United (DCU) – based in Antwerp, Belgium
– is growing at an increasingly rapid pace.
“We want a country-wide network of
well-connected, well-established, high-
quality and efficient DCs that offer multiple
services to our customers,” says Friso
Haringsma, Managing Director of DCU.
Haringsma originally gained experience of
the DC world through being a customer at a
previous IT company, the workings of which
allowed him the insight and expertise to
establish DCU down the line.
A further, and critical insight into the GC
market needs came from his discernment
of a disparity in demand and supply.
Haringsma says: “DCU was founded in 2010
with our first Antwerp DC, after we noticed
that engineers were always travelling to
other regions and countries because there
were simply no solutions in the local area.
So we recognised a gap in the market, saw
an opportunity due to the high demand
and short supply of such services, and so
established DCU – only, it wasn’t called DCU
back then. The ‘united’ designation came
about after our expansions, establishing
interconnectivity between our web of DCs,
which were then united, digitally-speaking.”

168 June 2022

 Example of
an image caption

datacentremagazine.com 169
 DATACENTER UNITED
In the past, it was common for customers
to bring their services to the physical DC
itself, after which it was up to them to cope
with the travel times and expenses. “But our
vision was different,” says Haringsma. “We
wanted to bring our services directly to the
customer, and the eventual development
and expansion of DCU flowed from this.”
DCU then continued acquiring DCs –
including another 3 this year alone – bringing
up their numbers to a total of six. The
chronology of DCU’s growth looks like this: its
first DC was established in Antwerp in 2010;
in 2012, it acquired a DC in Brussels; in 2016,
it acquired another in Antwerp; and, this year,
it acquired 3 more, with one in Bruges, one
170 June 2022
in Ghent and another in Southern Antwerp,
effectively doubling its numbers.
As stated on the company website, DCU
now possesses ‘6 Belgian state-of-the-art,
carrier-neutral data centres’ – “and we are
not finished yet,” says Haringsma. “We are
quite ambitious to get more market-share
and present ourselves to the wider European
DC market as a viable, cost-effective
alternative to giant DC providers.”
DCU also recently became Tier IV DC
certified, being recognised for its design,
operations and build sustainability. “We
also have flexible and transparent ways
of working that are embedded into our
culture,” says Haringsma.

EXECUTIVE BIO
FRISO HARINGSMA
TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR
LOCATION: ANTWERP, BELGIUM
Friso Haringsma is an expert on
the topics data management, data
centre and server infrastructure services &
cloud computing.
Friso has a broad knowledge of
management and strategy, gaining
experience at several IT companies
before he founded Datacenter United
in 2010. He is still CEO there. Thanks to
his experience with both indirect and
direct channels in B2C and B2B, Friso
“We want a country-
wide network of
well-connected, well-
established, high-quality
and efficient DCs that
offer multiple services
to our customers”
FRISO HARINGSMA
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
DATACENTER UNITED
Haringsma is a true all-rounder. Under
Friso's leadership Datacenter United grew
into a top player in the field of datacenter
and cloud services. As the foundation
of the digital economy the company
provides an ideal environment to run
private, hybrid and public cloud services.
The participation in 2020 of the publicly
listed company TINC in the company
underlines the long-term vision and the
great confidence in the company.
datacentremagazine.com 171
 DATACENTER UNITED

Expanding on DCU’s organisational vision,

he continues: “Edge and Proximity have
always been a part of our organisational
nature, and that was a further driving force
to acquire more local DCs. Transparency is
not just an abstract principle at DCU, but is
embedded in all aspects of our operations,
whether it be in terms of our numbers, the
temperatures of the centres themselves,
atmospheric humidity, energy consumption
and so on.”
DCU established a portal back in 2010,
allowing customers to keep an eye on all
aspects of these services. Haringsma says:
“It is important for us to not be a black box,
and so communication and dialogue with
our customers is absolutely key to us.”

Tier IV and DCU’s Culture

There was a myth that, in Belgium, it was
impossible to achieve a Tier IV DC. “Some
journalists even said they had consulted with
their experts,” says Haringsma, “and I said
‘these are clearly the wrong experts’.”
Asked about DCU’s Tier IV certification
in relation to its culture, Harigsma says:
“If you look at the Belgium DC landscape,
you see large companies are driving the
business – big names with big money,
and unfortunately, mainly big real estate
companies who are buying and selling
real estate for profits. In other words, they
create value for themselves but not for the
local communities.”
This insight emphasises DCU’s
determination to balance social values with
its DC business interests.
“DCU on the other hand,” says
Haringsma, “is a way of waving the flag and
showing our customers that we can add a
lot of value to the market by offering really
high-quality services, with a great culture
to boot.
“Tier IV is internationally known as the
highest quality DC available. The knowledge
and perception of DCs is incorrect most
of the time, as everybody claims to have a
certain quality of DCs, with most assuming
that, if it looks good, then it must be good –
but if you look under the bonnet you can see
that it isn't. You can't claim to be a certain
quality without certification – the devil’s in
the details.
“So from a certain perspective, Tier IV
isn't difficult to achieve, but in actuality, you
need full certification to have credibility.
Our team was instrumental in designing
and building our DCs, which in turn built

172 June 2022

“We wanted to bring trust, and they have very good knowledge
of the techniques and a mastery of the
our services directly operations involved.”

to the customer, DCU concentrates a lot of its energies on

competing as a smaller DC, demonstrating
and the eventual that data services should be orientated

development and
around people and communities. “A smaller
partner can be a reliable partner,” he says,
expansion of DCU “and can offer pricing as well as a high
quality of service. The initial investment
flowed from this” may cost more, but it isn't affecting the
operational part.”
DCU offers Migration Services that are
FRISO HARINGSMA
MANAGING DIRECTOR, fully managed in-house. Haringsma says:
DATACENTER UNITED “We were active in seven DCs at one time,

datacentremagazine.com 173
WHAT IF THE
POWER FAILS?
Elinex supplied the emergency
power supply to the new
Antwerp DC

follow us @elinexps
www.elinex.com
Belgium has its first TIER
IV Data Center. Antwerp DC,
one of the Data Centers of
Datacenter United, has been
officially certified as TIER IV
by the UPTIME institute since
February. The emergency
power installations designed
and supplied by Elinex are
an essential component
Elinex designs, builds and
maintains entire emergency power
installations, brand independent,
within the Benelux. With more
than 35 years of experience, they
a partner for many Data Centers.
Together with Huawei, Elinex
has been providing modular Data
Center solutions to its customers
since 2014. This goes beyond just
emergency power solutions.
Maintenance while
maintaining all redundancies
Jo Van Den Langenbergh,
Operational Director DC United
clarifies: "Maintenance can be
carried out while maintaining all
redundancies. In order to be Tier
IV certified, the emergency power
supply must also be designed
to maintain redundancy during
maintenance. Elinex created and
implemented this design. They also
supplied the racks and distributors,
consisting of synchronization
boards and main distribution. The
UPS solution concerns the high
efficiency (+97%) modular Huawei
5000 UPS. As a result, expansion in
power is easy to realize at any time.”
Single Fault Tolerance
Jo states: "It's not just about the
data, but also about the building
itself. A Single Fault Tolerance
applies to everything, including
the BMS. Every error must come
into the picture, even if that is a
problem with the climate system,
for example. So we have a double
redundancy on everything.”
TIER IV important for
specific sectors
Friso Haringsma, Managing Director
DC United: "For the majority of
customers, TIER III is sufficient,
but for heavy e-commerce
companies, governments, pharma
companies and companies that
handle privacy-sensitive data, TIER
IV is almost a must. We are pleased
with Elinex's efforts, which fit
seamlessly with the requirements
and wishes we had for Antwerp DC.
In addition to their expertise that
came in very handy in this project,
they are of special value because
they are 'independant', just like us.
We have a maintenance contract
with them based on response time
of 4 hours. This not only benefits
Datacenter United, but especially
our customers."
Learn more
 DataCenter United is expanding beyond
Belgium with eyes on FLAP

“DCU was founded in 2010 with our first Antwerp

DC, after we noticed that engineers were always
travelling to other regions and countries because
there were simply no solutions in the local area"
FRISO HARINGSMA
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
DATACENTER UNITED

176 June 2022


installing equipment, moving things around
and of course, engineers and technicians
can be expensive. So it was natural for me to
concentrate on customers through migration
services and moving DC’s inter-location.
“You can't always build-out at a new
location; a lot of the time you need to
migrate, and this needs to be done with
minimal downtime and constraints, and
without issues for the local team.”
DATACENTER UNITED
Edge Location Services and
The Question of Sustainability
There are certain global-to-local trends
that Haringsma sees impacting the Belgium
market. “In Belgium,” he says, “we are seeing a
lot of movement to cloud services and many
DCs reevaluating their businesses and their
real estate. For many DCs however, it isn't
their primary business, so in the end, it isn't
their cup of tea. DCs are always either too
datacentremagazine.com 177
 DATACENTER UNITED

big or too small, or running bottle-necks that

are way too costly. These problems require
solutions. That is why we try to bring our
services to our customers through multiple
DCs, over an area of about 75-100 km (about
a one hour drive in either direction).
“Some companies don't do everything
themselves. They use IT partners, but if
you can bring the DCs to your customers
yourselves, it’s added-value. So we want
to accelerate bringing our DCs to our
customers in the future, and provide On-Net
and Off-Net options over multiple DCs.”
DCU’s biggest driver is for proximity DCs.
“5G means decentralised data, compute,
network ability and storage,” Haringsma
says, “and so the services we provide are
requirements for this development.”
For many DCs, sustainability is an
afterthought. The centres are built with
the explicit – and sometimes sole purpose
– of data provision, thus sustainability
considerations come later.
“We are trying to be sustainable by
nature, being as efficient as possible,” says
Haringsma. “But it must be remembered that
there are multiple drivers. By affecting all the
variables that we have under our control, we
are able to lower costs and achieve higher
sustainability. However, it must be said that
service-continuity is always the primary
focus, and then comes sustainability.
“Nevertheless, we reuse water, utilise solar
panels and have heat exchange systems
that redirect waste heat to reheat our
warehouses, for example. We try to do our
best in handling those things.”
Haringsma alludes to the fact that
most talk of sustainability in the DC world
is not entirely honest. After all, a DC’s
primary output is energy, not data. “We
could change the loads of machines,” says
Haringsma, “but this is the responsibility of

178 June 2022


LOCAL EMPLOYMENT
Local employment (both
direct or indirect) equates
to around 15 or 16 people
employed per rack or server,
and every one euro attached
to DCs creates multiple
times its value for the local
economy.
DATACENTER UNITED
our customers, including things like killing
zombie DCs and so on. We make sure they
have a more efficient server infrastructure,
but there are further constraints on
sustainability for private DCs in general,
because they are not being controlled by
the government.”
On-Prem Legacy DCs that are converted
into commercial DCs have an even higher
PUE (Power usage effectiveness). “We
are 1.3, 1.4 or 1.5, where some private
DCs have a PUE of 4 or even 5. We are
hundreds of percentage points more
efficient and sustainable,” he says. “We
can't change the fact that a server and
digital infrastrastructure needs energy,
and we do need to raise more awareness
about this. The clouds run on machines,
and a lot of people don't have a clue about
this, so we need to fight against this lack of
understanding and educate them. Further,
why should we pay for an upgrade of the
grid, when Mr. Facebook and Mr. Amazon
are using up all of our energy for the next
2-3 years?”
Local DCs add local value to local banks,
insurance companies, accounting firms, IT
and Logistics companies – and DCU directly
adds value to the local economy through
these connections.
Haringsma points out that local
employment (both direct and indirect)
equates to around 15 or 16 people employed
per rack or server, and every one euro
attached to DCs creates multiple times
its value for the local economy. “A local
company also pays local taxes and serves
the local community, but this is not the case
with an international DC,” he says.
Haringsma believes that in the future,
every town and village should have its own
DC, and must give back to society, in energy
that should all eventually be recyclable.
datacentremagazine.com 179
 DATACENTER UNITED

180 June 2022

“We are quite ambitious
to get more market-
share and present
ourselves to the wider
European DC market
as a viable, cost-
effective alternative to
giant DC providers”
FRISO HARINGSMA
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
DATACENTER UNITED
DCU’s Partner Ecosystem
In terms of its current energy needs, one
of DCU’s partners is Elinex, “who are very
good partners”.
“They provide us with many benefits,
but one thing is they have a good culture
and vision, and organise to build certain
solutions. They are also really hands-on and
are a good fit for us,” says Haringsma. “They
also know what they're talking about. We
have around 10 or 15 UPS (Uninterruptible
Power Supply) brands, and it's hard to keep
track of what they're all doing in the market
and their constant evolution. Elinex can take
us directly to brands, and they really help
us provide solutions while also providing
the right information to allow us to be an
effective provider.”
“We also partner with Huawei, whose
equipment – according to my technicians –
is really well-designed and allows us to be
more efficient in our DC provisions,” he says.
Belgium is in the middle of the FLAP
(Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris)
region, which makes up the primary DC
market. DCU has high hopes that the
Belgian market will grow even more than it
already has in the past few years.
As for future trends, Haringsma says: “I see
consolidation in the market. There is a lot of
money involved, and it seems that everyone
wants a piece of the pie when they hear the
words ‘digital infrastructure’. When they say
‘5G’, I say, ‘ok show me’. A lot of bubbles are
created by those who don't know how DCs
actually work.
“Transparency will also be a central
theme, but as complexity accelerates,
there will be too many applications that can
potentially break down, so diverse solutions
will be needed. Most importantly, the
customer has to be able to focus on their
own business, and more partnerships will be
able to make this happen.”
Ever-expanding, DCU has just received
approval for the expansion of their current
Antwerp Datacenter flagship location, adding
another 6000 sqm of IT space, bringing it up
to become a 20 MW facility.
datacentremagazine.com 181
Magnús
Kristinsson,
CEO of
atNorth
DCs, on
Investment
and Growth
182 June 2022
WRITTEN BY:
İLKHAN ÖZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS VAUGHAN

datacentremagazine.com 183
 ATNORTH

atNorth CEO Magnús Kristinsson talks

about their DC expansion into new markets
and the investments and underlying vision
that has driven AN’s evolution

A
tNorth was established
back in 2009, and from its
inception it has championed an
entrepreneurial driving spirit.
“We basically consider
ourselves to be a startup company,” says
Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth, “and
in December 2021, we were acquired by
Partners Group, which is one of the largest
private market firms in the world. What this
means for us is that we will need to find a
new balance between the institutional and
the startup spirit, as this move opens up
many opportunities for us.”
atNorth is the largest colocation Data
Centre (DC) operator in Iceland, recognised
for its high-density computing technology
coupled with its dedication to sustainability.
The DC company is headquartered in
Reykjavik and already has several operations
across Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and
the United Kingdom - despite its early start-up
ethos, its acquisition by Partners Group has
bestowed atNorth with access to a completely
different level of funding, set to further fuel its
quickening expansion and growth.
This is the quid pro quo that sustainability-
focused and start-up-spirited DCs must
make when such large investment is the
key consideration. In fact, such a move 2009
Year Founded
provides opportunities to achieve goals that
may have seemed long out-of-reach, but
presently have become a reality that will, in
50+
Number of Employees
all likelihood, see atNorth achieve goals that
were not even possible for the DC company $53mn
just a few short years ago. Revenue in USD

184 June 2022

 Example of
an image caption

datacentremagazine.com 185
 ATNORTH

“Our partner ecosystem is essential to

us,” says Kristinsson, “since we are not a big
organisation. We have a supply chain of key
partners that we work with, and we would
not be able to build our DCs, nor service our
customers, without it.”
Another one of atNorth’s key partners is
Systemair, who they have been working with
since 2019 and who provide their DCs with
cooling systems and solutions in Iceland’s
very cold climate.
Kristinsson is an engineer and has been
working in IT since the beginning of his
career. Back then, he was a part of Advania
- the company that eventually acquired
atNorth in 2011. At the time, atNorth was
a very small data centre, started by some
pioneers that had already realised that DCs
in remote locations such as Iceland - where
the cold climate could be utilised and there
was an abundance of renewable energy -
was a great idea, but the business model
was just not working.
“We then turned it around and made
it into a very successful data company,”
says Kristinsson. “At the time, I ran it as a
business unit within Advania. But in 2018,
I stepped in as full-time CEO, and the
growth journey of atNorth really took off.
Although I’m the CEO of atNorth, based
out of Reykjavik, I spend a lot of time in
Stockholm, where we’re building our first
DataCentre outside of Iceland.
The first atNorth site, which they acquired started the construction of their first data
back in 2011, is built in an old printing facility. centre outside of Iceland, in Stockholm. The
Given the size of the data and the inauguration ceremony of the DC was held
footprint that they have today, it was a very in the first week of March, this year.
small site with a capacity of approximately atNorth has been and will continue
3MW. Very soon after that, in 2014, they to expand into areas outside of Iceland,
expanded into a new ’Megasite’ where they providing ‘more compute for a better
have access to 80MW running at 100% world’, as its slogan goes. Its ambitions
renewable energy, built on approximately are recognised throughout the global DC
18,000 SQM of DC space. In 2020, atNorth industry, and it occupies a strategic position

186 June 2022

 ATNORTH

MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON
TITLE: CEO
LOCATION: KÓPAVOGUR, CAPITAL
REGION, ICELAND

Magnus has been the CEO of

atNorth since January 2018.
From 2010-2017, Magnus was MD
of Managed Service for Advania, but
atNorth was then a part of Advania’s
Managed Service business. Before
that Magnus worked for Vodafone
in Iceland. Magnus holds a M.Sc.
in Engineering from Technical
University of Denmark (DTU) and a
B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from
the University of Iceland. Magnus
was born in Sweden 1976. A fact
you may not know is that Magnus
was a football referee in the
Icelandic top division for years and
has refereed in the Finnish, Danish
and Norwegian leagues.

“Everything is
EXECUTIVE BIO

changing in
the world of
digitalisation”
MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON
CEO, ATNORTH

“Our partner
ecosystem is
essential to us”
MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON
CEO, ATNORTH
in the DC space, having an early vision
that would eventually see its successes
recognised and its potential endorsed by the
approaches of investors and partners from
all over the business world.
“Since our inception, we’ve basically
been focusing on high-density workloads,”
says Kristinsson, “as well as aiming for low
latency requirements, workloads in HPC
(High Performance Computing), Artificial
Intelligence, Deep Learning and Natural
Language Processing.”
atNorth’s uniqueness doesn’t arise from
one particular USP (Unique Selling Point)
like many other DCs - or even companies in
general, for that matter.
ATNORTH
“I think that what makes us different from
other DC companies rests on a whole set
of attributes. One of the most important,
of course, is our fundamental sustainability
focus. All our DCs are built out of materials
that are as sustainable as possible. We use
renewable energy only, and our DCs are
designed with energy-efficiency in mind
from the outset. On top of this, our market
focus is on workloads that need high rack
density and use a lot of electricity.
“One of the main things that sets us apart is
that as operators, we are born in IT and don't
come from real estate, as many DC operators
do. That means that flexibility and the creativity
to bring a project to fruition is a central part
of our thinking. We also understand that
time-to-market is key for our customers,
so we are strongly solutions-focused. We
not only provide housing for computers - as
many other DCs do - but we actually build
the computer clusters for our clients, and if
needed, we operate them as well.”
atNorth partly provides traditional column
high-density racks, but also low-density, too,
with all the required ancillary services and,
given their flexible nature, can even do build-
to-suit projects on their own campuses. Many
of their customers, especially those that are
using a lot of electricity for computational
workloads, want mixed-tiering, which
essentially means mixed-redundancy.
They may want lower redundancy for the
computational workloads for instance, and
higher redundancy for net and storage, and
atNorth can, and do provide this service.
On top of all of this, atNorth is able to
procure, build and operate the computer
clusters that their customers would typically
host in their DCs. “We are highly flexible,”
says Kristinsson, “and are able to cater
solutions for very specific client needs all
across the spectrum.”
datacentremagazine.com 189
 ATNORTH

Magnús Kristinsson, CEO of atNorth DCs,

on investment and growth

Flexibility is more central to DC

companies than is obvious at first glance,
especially when it comes to those who
cater for fit-outs and customised or made-
to-order services such as those provided
by atNorth. This flexibility and diversity of
needs can be from a physical or digital point
of view. Mixed-latency requirements is
just one example of how bespoke a client's
requirements may be. This flexibility may
present in many forms, and a DC company
that possesses it, along with its parent
attribute, creativity, is far more likely to
achieve a certain level of success. The
important point is that a client's needs in
the DC space can be as varied as business
culture itself.
The current demand for atNorth’s services
is higher than they’ve ever seen before. This
means that they are building-out, based on
the same principles, in highly flexible and
modular data centre buildings.

190 June 2022

 ATNORTH

“The future of “We already have two DCs in the South-

West and are currently very busy expanding
the Industry will our DC footprint, building a new site in the

be marked by
North of Iceland,” he says. “Sustainability is
at the core of our value proposition; our data

major growth in centres in Iceland are built on completely

renewable energy. There is no other
Sustainability, AI, entity even on the grid in Iceland, which is
exceptional. I think it's the only country in the
deep-learning and world where you can find such conditions

High Performance
and although we already have access to all
this renewable energy, we have still been

Computing” designing our Data Centres so that they use

even less energy than all other DCs do. We
also select all the building materials very
MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON carefully, with the objective of reducing the
CEO, ATNORTH carbon footprint of our buildings.”

We run on

100%
renewable energy

datacentremagazine.com 191
“We use renewable
energy only, and our
DCs are designed with
energy-efficiency in
mind from the outset”
MAGNÚS KRISTINSSON
CEO, ATNORTH

192 June 2022

 ATNORTH

With ever-expanding connectivity

demand and supply, big data, the push
caused by COVID lockdowns, and an
expeditiously evolving technological
environment in general, the DC industry
is quickly becoming one of the most
in-demand technologies in the world.
Then there is the concern about a
seeming internal tension between such
energy needs and a rising consciousness
of the need for environmental protection
and cultivation.
“Everything is changing in the world
of digitalisation,” says Kristinsson.
“Our customers need to engage with
partners that can provide them with the
flexibility to cope with the rapidity of
these developments, but also with the
increasing demands that they have for
sustainable solutions.”
Asked what the next 12 to 18 months
look like for atNorth, Kristinsson says:
“We will be very busy onboarding new
customers, due to accelerating demand,
while also fitting out new spaces for
our existing customers and finding and
constructing new sites for our DCs.”
In-line with this ever-increasing
demand, atNorth is seeking to even
further expand with a 50MW megasite
in the Nordics, that will use 100% green
electricity from renewable sources, making
it one of the most sustainable and cost-
efficient wholesale data centres ever built.
Kristinsson concludes: “The future
of the Industry itself will be marked by
major growth in Sustainability, Artificial
Intelligence, Deep-Learning and High
Performance Computing which is the main
driver of demand in our space.”

datacentremagazine.com 193
ARK DATA CENTRES
DELVES INTO
AN EMISSIONS
REDUCTION STRATEGY

AD FEATURE
WRITTEN BY:
TOM
SWALLOW

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS
VAUGHAN

194 June 2022

ARK DATA CENTRES

datacentremagazine.com 195
 ARK DATA CENTRES

Head of Sustainability at Ark

Data Centres, Pip Squire talks
carbon reduction and overcoming
challenges as the industry pushes
for net-zero operations

T
he sustainability discussion
comes with controversial
views and misconceptions
on how responsible
organisations actually are.
When using the word ‘sustainable’ or
anything that relates to the subject, most
industries will be subject to the spotlight
from either consumers, partners or their
boards. The data centre industry is one that
has received a lot of attention in this area
and since the data centre became a staple
for daily life – supporting many aspects of
digital transformation – organisations have
been working on more efficient and less
carbon-intensive methods of operation.
As both businesses and individuals
become reliant on digital ecosystems,
data storage is a major contributor to the
challenge data centres have in becoming
sustainable. An example of how consumers
negatively contribute, is the increased
number of photos and files backed up to
clouds, which are reliant on data centres —
and their energy consumption — to retain
them. For businesses, this is similar as they
digitise their filing systems and carry out all
processes on decentralised systems.
One of the organisations in charge of
storing and making this data available is
Ark Data Centres, a supplier of unique
data centre solutions in a multi campus
environment with diverse fibre connectivity.
The company began its first development

196 June 2022

 Pip Squire
Head of Energy and Sustainability

datacentremagazine.com 197
 ARK DATA CENTRES

Ark Data Centres’ sustainable approach

to renewable energy

in 2008, following the

acquisition of land for its
“I'M PLEASED TO was headhunted by an
American Design and
first data centre facility. SAY THAT OUR Build contractor, and he
It has been steadily spent 10 years working
expanding ever since. INVESTORS FULLY on the design and
Its Head of Energy SUPPORT OUR construction of power
and Sustainability Pip plants, with a focus
Squire is an advocate SUSTAINABILITY on renewable energy
for sustainable data-
centre operations and
AMBITIONS” systems. Power and
renewable energy led to
even took to the stage the data centre industry
at Sustainability LIVE PIP SQUIRE which has been his focus
HEAD OF ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY,
to explain more about ARK DATA CENTRES
for the last 15 years.
the company’s efforts
to make digital solutions efficient while Energy purchasing is critical, but challenging
providing a service that requires constant As companies decarbonise their data centre
attention and energy supply. operations, the development of new sites and
With more than 40 years in the facilities only tackles part of the issue. Firms
construction industry, Squire spent 17 of must look at ways to reduce emissions across
them working in civil engineering and worked existing sites and this can be achieved through
on a broad range of projects, focusing in purchasing, but it’s not a clean-cut process. As
the end on power, power supplies and Head of Energy this is an area of the business
power generation. Following this, Squire that Squire holds a significant stake in.

198 June 2022


“At the moment, buying energy is quite
tricky given where the energy market is,
but it's not just about buying sustainable
and renewable energy. It's also about how
we make sure that the energy is used as
efficiently as possible, and how we also
report and share that with our customers,”
says Squire.
“As part of sustainability and energy
efficiency, it will move away from just energy
efficiency to water efficiency, to heat reuse,
to asking how we begin to report under the
greenhouse gas protocols.”
Increasing emissions demand
efficiency systems
With continuous improvement and
sustainability embedded in the company’s
DNA, the firm is working on ways to mitigate
unnecessary emissions and push further
efficiencies across its facilities.
Systems are put in place to not only to
prolong the lives of data centres—cooling as
an example—but to make operations more
efficient. These solutions are important for
reducing the environmental impacts of data
centres, but Squire believes there are current
limitations on emissions reduction, which
will require further means of action.
To put it simply: “what are we going to do
for offsetting?,” asks Squire.
“Because at some point we'll have
minimised our energy demand to a point
where we can't cut it down anymore. CO2
EXECUTIVE BIO
will be down at the very limit, but to get to
net zero, we're going to have to offset it.”
95%
of Ark Data Centre facilities are totally
recyclable at end of life
ARK DATA CENTRES
PIP SQUIRE
TITLE: HEAD OF ENERGY AND
SUSTAINABILITY
INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
LOCATION: CORSHAM, WILTSHIRE
Pip Squire obtained his Geology
Degree from Oxford University in
1979, followed by three years of exploration
in southern Africa. In 1982, he returned to
Imperial College where he gained an MSc in
Engineering Geology with Distinction.
With a foundation degree in earth
sciences, sustainability has been at the
core of Squire’s career and echoes across
design and operations at Ark data centres
and campuses.
Squire moved from engineering
geology and foundation design on large
hydro-electric projects around the world,
to nuclear waste management, airport
engineering and into the power industry
in 1996.
From 1999 to 2008, he led the European
renewable energy team for a large US
Construction Company, with a particular
focus on hydro, marine and tidal power
systems. By combining the company’s
power and telecom expertise he broadened
the company offering to data centres. He
moved to Ark and a full time career in data
centres from 2008, first as Engineering and
Projects Director, then Head of Design and
Build, through Head of Design, Energy &
Innovation to his current position as Head of
Energy and Sustainability.
Over the last 14 years, Pip has led
the successful planning, design and
construction of over 100MW(IT) of tier three
data halls in 12 data centres across three
data centre campuses.
datacentremagazine.com 199
 ARK DATA CENTRES

Carbon offsets are not for all industries,

but Squire advocates their importance in
the company’s ability to reach its emissions
reduction target of net zero by 2030. The only
way to mitigate emissions is to look deeper
into their sources, which is challenging.
Squire says that due to the nature of
Scope 3, “you don't have any real control
over it. And we started last year looking at
our Scope 3 emission and looking at the ones
that we thought we could directly impact or
have the most chance of impacting in our
day to day operations.”
“There's been quite a significant change.
COVID-19 has done a lot for meetings over
the internet, but you can't substitute key
meetings with a zoom call. So there will be
an increase in our business travel in 2022
compared to 2020 and 2021, but it's going to
be nothing as big, I hope, as it was in 2019.”
The company is also very active in seeking
changes beyond the data centre and
employee commuting is an important one
to consider. Based on the 2019 figures – as
the unprecedented events in 2020 and 2021
saw increased homeworking – the company
was able to analyse and report on the
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions involved in
employee commuting.
“We have reports on greenhouse gas
emissions for 2019 and 2020 based on
questionnaires from our staff and from our
mileage records and in parallel to that, we've
started sharing our data,” says Squire.
The firm is also encouraging its employees
to make the switch to alternative energy
sources for travel through the installation of
electric vehicle charging points across its sites.
Squire says: “All our data centre campuses
now have electric vehicle charging points to
promote electric vehicles on our sites and
their use by those who have been sold on
the idea of going electric.”

200 June 2022

“WE CAN'T BE VERY MUCH
MORE CO2 EFFICIENT
BECAUSE WE HAVE
PUSHED THE LAWS OF achieve the same goal, but the difficulties lie
within Ark’s smaller supplier-base.
PHYSICS TO THE POINT Squire says: “If it's a small niche company,

WHERE YOU CAN'T we have got to take them on that journey

CHANGE PHYSICS”
PIP SQUIRE
HEAD OF ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY,
ARK DATA CENTRES
Sustainable data centres require
supply chain visibility
But can you implement some level of control
over Scope 3 emissions? This is the future that
Ark is working towards as it strives for visibility
of its entire value chain. Larger suppliers are
more likely to implement their own ESG
strategies and work with their customers to
to be able to get them to comply with our
reporting requirements, and that I think is
going to be our biggest challenge over the
coming 18 months.”
Beyond emissions, the firm is looking
towards the future – the end-of-life
procedure – of its data centres. Knowing
where energy and components arrive from,
represents a percentage of its supply chain
visibility efforts, with another being its waste
portfolio. What does it do with its data centre
facilities when they reach ‘end-of-life’?
Ark has carried out a lot of work
measuring the embedded carbon of its
facilities and implementing modular
construction systems, which have been

datacentremagazine.com 201
202 June 2022
 ARK DATA CENTRES

instrumental in the company’s ability to not

only reduce its carbon, but to deliver new
units in response to the increasing demand
for data centre capacity.
“95% of our facilities are totally recyclable
at end of life, which is rather more than if we
had a traditional concrete style building,”
Squire says, before explaining how the

“WE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO

OPERATE AT HIGHER TEMPERATURES,
WHICH MANY PEOPLE ARE
BEGINNING TO ALLOW US TO DO”
PIP SQUIRE
HEAD OF ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY,
ARK DATA CENTRES

organisation achieves this, and the supply

chain itself is a critical area to be measured.
“It's the question of, how do you define
the boundaries of where the limit of your
steel CO2 emissions are? If it's UK based, as
the bulk of Ark steel is, we know associated
emissions. If the steel comes from China,
it's a different number, all of that sort of
stuff, but there are standard methods and
we're working through that, particularly on
the new builds.”

Seeing sustainability from both angles

Sustainability may be on the lips of major
organisations and governing bodies across
the board, but in the words of Pip Squire:
“You're beginning to see it in the major
corporates coming through now.”
“I'm pleased to say our investors fully
support our sustainability ambitions. So
we've now got ourselves into a position

datacentremagazine.com 203
204 June 2022

where they are giving us credit for
sustainable targets and hitting sustainable
targets on a year on year basis.”
“And this means in the long term, that
financial institutions are now driving
development for companies like us to be
more sustainable in terms of their delivery
with sustainable goals, which need to be
measured and reported on annually.”
Squire highlights the reality of data
centres at present, which are restricted by
the current research around clean energy
implementation. Squire believes that Ark
“can't be very much more CO2 efficient
because we have pushed the laws of physics
to their limit, and you can't change physics.”
ARK DATA CENTRES
“IF WE DON'T NEED
DX COOLING, WE
ELIMINATE THE NEED
FOR REFRIGERANT
GASES (FGAS), WHICH
IN THEMSELVES ARE
MORE HARMFUL
THAN CO2”
PIP SQUIRE
HEAD OF ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY,
ARK DATA CENTRES
In the interest of corporations as well as
customers, Ark is exercising transparency
across its operations and is forthcoming
with its limitations. Meanwhile, consumer
behaviour plays a significant role in its ability
to be sustainable. The more data storage is
consumed unnecessarily – files that are kept
but not used – the more data centre capacity
is required, which has major ripple effects for
energy footprints across the globe.
“Do you need to keep all data stored for
all time?” Squire asks. “Because if you don’t,
then we need to start finding ways of getting
stuff off of the internet. If you think about
it, the internet also, through the way it's
managed, looks at what's in your profile and
what is most attractive to you, and it then
sends you to that particular link. People have
to be educated on the massive potential
consequences of their seemingly trivial data
usages. We all have a part to play.
datacentremagazine.com 205
INDUSTRIAL-SCALE
DATA CENTRES,
INSPIRED BY
HYPERSCALE

AD FEATURE
WRITTEN BY:
JESS GIBSON

PRODUCED BY:
LEWIS VAUGHAN

206 June 2022

 KAO DATA

datacentremagazine.com 207
 KAO DATA

Kao Data’s CCO, Spencer Lamb,

tells us about the company’s
evolution, its ambitions, and its
underlying sustainability ethos

T
he steep rise in digitalisation over
the past decade has spurred an
intensive period of evolution and
maturation in the data centre
industry, and the global COVID-
19 pandemic succeeded in accelerating this
trend further.
However, as the world becomes more
dependent on data centres and the digital
infrastructure landscape, many businesses
have been faced with an intriguing
dichotomy between the need to meet
traditional demands for resilience and to
reduce their environmental impact in the
face of net zero.
Kao Data is a unique hybrid, with feet
placed firmly in both camps. Located across
three campuses in East and West London,
and catering to a wide range of customers,
from enterprise and cloud to HPC and AI,
it sets itself apart by being the UK’s leading
operator of industrial-scale data centres
designed to house the most demanding
customer workloads.
In many respects, this means that the
company recognises the merits of investing
in sustainable infrastructure that serves
many traditional businesses, from financial
services to retail and enterprise to cloud, as
well as in optimising its campus and facility
developments to support customers within
high-touch areas such as life sciences,
artificial intelligence (AI) and research
supercomputing.

208 June 2022

 Example of
an image caption

datacentremagazine.com 209
 KAO DATA

Moreover, it does so with an ethos for

ultra-efficient and sustainable operations,
supporting today’s businesses with green
digital infrastructure that can meet demands
for a reduced carbon footprint and industry-
leading uptime.

Traditionalism vs revolutionary,
sustainable change
With the proliferation of digitalisation driving
a rapid pace of change across all industries, it
appears that many data centre stakeholders
are prepared for any sign of shifting trends.
According to Kao Data’s chief commercial
officer (COO), Spencer Lamb, this forward-
thinking data centre operator is more than ready
for the technological challenges that lay ahead.
“Over the last two-to-three years, against
the backdrop of COVID-19, we've seen the
data centre market mature faster than ever,”
explains Lamb. “We've also seen investor
appetite for the industry get more and more
prolific, as investors that have previously sought
‘safe’, traditional investments have shifted their
focus towards ESG and digital technologies.”
“Data centres have also become the

“What we're trying to

critical infrastructure where business is
facilitated. Advanced facilities such as our
high-performance KLON-01 data centre in
Harlow have become one of many crucial
do is make sure that
pillars in the UK digital economy,” he adds. our data centres are
The decline of the modern retail high street
due to the rise of ecommerce platforms
intricately designed
is one example of an industry that has to drive operational
and energy efficiency,
embraced digital transformation and has seen
an increased need for data centres that can
cater to a wide range of data requirements.
However, with a complex array of new
no matter the type of
technologies impacting both data centre deployment”
designs and computing infrastructures,
today’s colocation operators need to push
SPENCER LAMB
the envelope to meet demands for both CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER,
performance and sustainability. KAO DATA

210 June 2022

 KAO DATA

SPENCER LAMB
TITLE: CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER
LOCATION: LONDON, ENGLAND,
UNITED KINGDOM

Spencer Lamb is the Chief

Commercial Officer (CCO)
at Kao Data. Having held previous
positions at data centre companies
– Infinity SDC and Verne Global
– Spencer brings over 25 years of
experience in data centres, HPC,
AI, cloud and telco to the business.
As an influential industry
thought leader with a reputation
for multi-million pound
revenue creation across finance,
hyperscale, life sciences, research
and education, Spencer leads the
sales, marketing and commercial
teams in executing the company’s
go-to-market strategy, which will
drive new customer acquisitions
furthering the expansion of its
£230m, 40 MW Kao Data campus
In this vein, then, sits the organisation and grow the portfolio’s platform.
that is Kao Data, providing a range of
hyperscale-inspired data centres to support
compute-intensive workloads and the latest
in cutting edge technological innovation.
Key differentiators for the company
include its Built-to-Suit services, supporting
cloud and enterprise providers to fund,
EXECUTIVE BIO

design, build and operate ultra-sustainable

data centres that underpin UK capacity
demands; a scalable and advanced HPC
architecture capable of supporting high-
density forms of AI and machine learning;
and its award-winning technical team,
who are responsible for delivering high
performance colocation services built upon
a combined expertise formed over decades.
 KAO DATA

Meeting ‘mission-critical’ market needs

As well as the swift move towards online,
“Data centres have
there’s also been a significant rise in high become the critical
performance computing (HPC), AI, machine
learning, and supercomputing – especially infrastructure
in the UK Innovation Corridor, where the Kao where business is
Data brand was formed.
This is due to the expansion of the market facilitated. Advanced
for GPU/CPU-intensive computing, the
demand for low-latency connectivity, and
facilities such as our
the massive increase in the size of datasets high-performance
required by said HPC and AI applications.
To effectively meet these requirements, KLON-01 data centre
Kao Data has defined a dedicated data in Harlow have
centre road map, with the flexibility
to deliver bespoke, high performance become one of many
architectures, while maintaining a reputation
for being one of the most sustainable data
crucial pillars in the
centre operators in the UK. UK digital economy”
“We're in the process of building the
second of four data centres on our Harlow
SPENCER LAMB
campus,” says Lamb. “And demand is CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER,
accelerating. We're in the final stages of KAO DATA

212 June 2022

 KAO DATA

completing the fourth data hall in KLON-01

and have already commenced the building
of KLON-02. The facility will provide further
high performance and energy efficient,
55 MW
power capacity
mission-critical services by next year.” across 3 sites
The most notable achievement of Kao
Data’s expansion is the challenging backdrop 99.9999%
it has been completed against. This includes guaranteed data
centre uptime
rapidly changing market dynamics that have
affected global supply chains, industry skills
shortages, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
1.2
industry-leading
impacting energy supply and cost. Not least and SLA-backed
PUE
to mention an industry accelerated by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“We're seeing a big uptick in customer 100%
renewable energy
demand, and, because of our Harlow used throughout
location, situated between London and its data centre
operations
Cambridge in what is known as the UK
Innovation Corridor, there's over 50 science First data centre
operator in Europe
parks on our doorstep. Furthermore, there to adopt HVO –
are numerous world-leading universities reducing backup
power emissions by
north and south of us in Cambridge and
London, as well as other traditional large- 90%

datacentremagazine.com 213
 KAO DATA

Kao Data: sustainable, high performance data

centres

scale research institutions utilising HPC on

an industrial-scale – meaning Kao Data is
perfectly placed to support them.”
Kao Data’s proximity to such innovative
thinkers in the research and start-up
communities, as well as its own technical
expertise, makes it the perfect home for
the UK’s most powerful supercomputer –
NVIDIA’s Cambridge-1 – a prestigious title
to hold, particularly when surrounded by an
abundance of data centres in London.
In fact, it’s the concentration of data
centres in West London that has inspired Kao
Data’s build strategy: ensuring a competitive
presence in Slough with a new 16 MW data
centre to support cloud and enterprise
businesses, while also creating a dedicated
high performance campus that houses a
series of 10 MW, carrier-neutral data centres
in Harlow – perfectly placed for the north
and east of London.
“By being more located around the capital,
we are able to address a wider marketplace

214 June 2022

 KAO DATA

“The foundational and therefore provide a fairly unique niche

compared to the traditional sites in West
blueprint of the design London,” says Lamb. “This means our

has been predicated on organisation is well-placed to support cloud

and enterprise, while being technically
a very energy efficient advanced enough to support emerging

approach, which has innovations within HPC, supercomputing

and even quantum computing.”
enabled us to achieve
a market-leading Customer colllaboration
and the road to net zero
low PUE of 1.2, which With customer-centricity and sustainability
we’re contractually at the heart of its business, Kao Data has
created facilities that both meet the needs
committed to” of many different businesses while helping
to minimise their environmental impact. Part
SPENCER LAMB of this dedication was creating an innovative
CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, infrastructure platform that has the flexibility
KAO DATA
to provide industry-leading energy efficiency
capabilities and support its customers’
compute requirement sustainably,
regardless of size or scale.
“What we're trying to do is make sure that
our data centres – the base infrastructure
that sits behind the data hall – are
intricately designed to drive operational
and energy efficiency, no matter the type of
deployment. The reason for that is twofold:
firstly, it makes things far more efficient from
a power and cooling perspective; secondly,
from an operational viewpoint, it means it's
much simpler to install, build and manage.
This makes it more cost-effective, meaning
we can reduce the cost to our customers
by being more energy efficient, powered by
renewables, and optimised to offer them a
lower TCO – a key point of discussion in the
current climate.”
Lamb continues: “When we look at
things like cooling, we can complement our
design quite simply with a direct cooling
NVIDIA Cambridge-1, configuration that will sit easily within what
the UK’s fastest
we've deployed to date. We're not seeking
and most powerful
supercomputer
datacentremagazine.com 215
 KAO DATA

to reinvent the wheel or come up with a

cunning new plan for a data centre every
week. Ultimately, the more complexity you
take out of a data centre’s design, the more
efficient it is, therefore, the lower the cost
will be and the simpler it'll be to operate.”
“The Kao Data business premise is to
ensure operational reliability and minimise
our customers’ risk of downtime, while
helping them minimise their environmental
impact. We run our customers’ IT
infrastructure 24/7, 365 without any
interruption, but we also have to think about
the roles that sustainability and energy
demands play.”
This pragmatic approach is directly inspired
by Kao Data’s COO Paul Finch and CTO
Gérard Thibault, two of the industry’s leading
data centre developers and operators. Their
commitment to customers is based around
a focus on providing the basis for future
technological advancements, while directly
supporting sustainability requirements.
“Paul and Gérard have really driven
that mindset at Kao Data. Their pragmatic
approach ensures that what they're doing
will deliver something bespoke and highly
effective for the customer, and is exactly globe. Sustainability is therefore an essential
what they need,” Lamb says with a smile, consideration for data centre operators,
acknowledging the tendency of many which is particularly salient when considering
data centre operators to instil a “bells- the rise of HPC, AI and machine learning.
and-whistles” approach that can be both The continuation of digital transformation
costly and inefficient. At Kao Data, the will potentially lead to huge proportions of
company chooses instead to address the data being created and transferred to data
industry challenges head on, and push the centres, which will, in turn, require more
boundaries when it comes to sustainability, energy per server and generate more heat.
efficiency, and uptime. To resolve this conundrum, as well as
many other sustainability concerns, Kao Data
Strategic investments and future expansion is actively using 100% renewable energy and
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) embracing alternative renewable fuels such
have also become key focuses for investors as hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO), which
considering the recent rapid enlightenment removes 90% of carbon dioxide from its
to climate change and its effect across the backup provision. It also models and tests its

216 June 2022

“The Kao Data business facilities using digital twins, ensuring its data
centre platform is designed around an ethos
premise is to ensure of energy efficiency.
operational reliability “The foundational blueprint of the design
has been predicated on a very energy
and minimise our efficient approach, which has enabled us
customers risk of to achieve a market-leading low PUE of 1.2,
which we’re contractually committed to.
downtime, while helping We use ultra-efficient cooling units to cool
them minimise their the IT infrastructure,” explains Lamb, before
outlining the company’s other sustainability
environmental impact” considerations.
“This approach enables us to marry
SPENCER LAMB technically advanced deployments with a
CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, very low PUE,” he continues. “We've taken
KAO DATA
our own sustainability commitments a

datacentremagazine.com 217
“We run our customer's IT
infrastructure 24/7, 365
without any interruption,
but we have to think about
the roles that sustainability
and energy demands play”
SPENCER LAMB
CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER,
KAO DATA
218 June 2022
step further by being the first data centre
operator in Europe to transition all our
backup power generators to HVO. This
effectively removes all fossil fuel diesel from
site, reducing 90% of harmful emissions
immediately, and is the same process we’ll
follow for all our future data centres.”
Interestingly, Kao Data has embraced
key aspects of the Open Compute Project
design methodology and was Europe’s
first colocation provider to become OCP-
Ready™. The company is also NVIDIA

DGX Data Centre Certified, meaning
if a customer chooses to deploy pre-
configured, high-density racks – those that
can weigh a tonne or more – the system
can be wheeled into the facility and into
the data hall without encountering any
obstacles. Lamb says that, in instances
like this, “customers can have HPC racks
delivered, deployed, and powered-up in
as little as 20 minutes”.
Looking forward, Kao Data is in the
enviable position of easily adapting its high
KAO DATA
performance infrastructure platform to meet
customer and sustainability requirements,
while eyeing the rise of new technological
advancements.
Importantly, it’s putting provisions in place
to meet accelerated customer demands –
something of significant importance as the
UK fights to reinforce its position as a leader
in the wider technological landscape.
datacentremagazine.com 219
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