Data Center Investment News — 03/03/2023

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AtlasEdge completes acquisition of four DC1 data centres

AtlasEdge has completed its acquisition of Datacenter One, a deal that brings more than 140 customers for its four data centres.

The deal, announced in October 2022, means AtlasEdge takes ownership of two data centres in Stuttgart and one each in Düsseldorf and Leverkusen, as well as additional locations under construction.

“The acquisition of DC1 is another significant moment in our journey to build Europe’s leading edge platform,” said AtlasEdge CEO Giuliano Di Vitantonio (pictured).

“Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a key strategic market characterised by robust demand for infrastructure closer to the end user.”

Colt breaks ground on 57MW west London data centre site

Colt has started work on its latest hyperscale data centre in west London, a 57MW pair of buildings in Hayes. These will be the third and fourth hyperscale data centres in London by Colt Data Centre Services (Colt DCS).

Niclas Sanfridsson (pictured), CEO of the data centre company, said: “We worked closely with the local community and stakeholders through the planning process to intricately shape all aspects of this development, to outline the economic benefits it will bring, and to explain the critical role that data centres play in all of our daily lives and most importantly what opportunities this brings for the local communities.”

Colt announced in January 2022 that it had sold 12 edge colocation centres across Europe and was expanding its hyperscale data centres in Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions.

The Hayes site, to be called the London 4 Data Centre, is part of that plan, which called for 100MW of IT power. They will provide more than half of that 2022 target, 57MW of IT power, designed to support the requirements of large enterprises and cloud service providers.

Evolution Data Centres & Megawide to Develop 69MW Carrier-Neutral Data Center in the Philippines

Evolution Data Centres (EDC), a pan-Asian data center platform, has signed a joint venture agreement with Megawide, an engineering and infrastructure firm in the Philippines, to design, build and operate a carrier-neutral data center in the Philippines.

The project involves the long-term development of a 69MW colocation data center in Cavite, spread over a 4-hectare campus, with an initial 23MW phase 1 deployment within 2024.

EDC has selected the Philippines market as part of their strategy to focus on high growth markets and specifically because of the country’s rising data consumption, young digital-savvy generation and strong governmental support for digital transformation.

As part of their commitment to build greener data centers they will work with Megawide to ensure that the new data center will minimize its impact on the environment. This will include powering the facility with renewable energy.

Digital Edge Enters Philippines with its New 10MW Carrier Neutral Data Center

Digital Edge, a data center platform company, has announced the availability of its new 10MW data center in Manila, NARRA 1, which offers 2,200 cabinets and will become the largest carrier-neutral and most energy efficient data center in operation in the Philippines.

The launch of NARRA1 marks Digital Edge’s debut in the country as the company continues its mission to bridge the digital divide in Southeast Asia’s high growth markets. 

NARRA1 has a 5,200 square meters of collocation space and is located inside Laguna Technopark in Biñan, Laguna. It is a joint project with the Threadborne Group, a local family office focused on technology and real estate.

The facility has been designed to meet the latest demands from cloud, network, digital media, and enterprise customers in terms of power specifications, reliability, security and sustainability. Digital Edge has confirmed it has already received bookings for the new data center including from multiple major domestic internet service providers.

Algeria Telecom launches new data center in Constantine

Algeria Telecom has launched a new data center in the Algerian city of Constantine.

“A data center of Algeria Telecom was inaugurated today at the level of the wilaya [province] of Constantine, where this project was fully completed by the teams of Algeria Telecom, which is a real achievement for the institution,” the state-owned company said this week.

Specifications of the new facility weren’t shared, but the telco said the data center is ‘equipped with the latest technology in addition to a cloud platform’ and will facilitate collecting, processing, and storing enterprise & corporate data.

Constantine is located more than 350km east of capital city, Algiers. The company said it is also planning to build other data centers across the country, without providing further details.

Nepal’s Ncell launches data center in Lalitpur

Nepalese telco Ncell has launched a new data center in Lalitpur. Local press reports the Axiata-owned telco has opened a new data center in the Nakkhu area of Lalitpur, a city located just south of Kathmandu.

The company invested around Rs 2 billion ($15.1m) in the project, which the company claims is the largest in the country.

The two-story facility is built using a prefabricated containerized design and is capable of surviving earthquakes up to nine on the Richter scale. It features 250 racks across three data halls on a 1,530 sqm (16,530 sq ft) site and offers a capacity of up to 5MW, with a redundant design load of 2.25MW.

Construction began in 2018 and was completed in 2021, but the company has only recently made an announcement about the facility going live. The telco will be offering colocation services as well as hosting its own services.

CloudHQ breaks ground on 228MW data center campus in São Paulo state, Brazil

Data center developer CloudHQ is developing a new hyperscale campus in São Paulo state, Brazil.

The company held a groundbreaking ceremony in Paulínia. The facility will be CloudHQ’s first site in the country and Latin America.

The new 228MW campus will reportedly feature up to six buildings, and see more than $3 billion invested. The first phase will comprise three buildings, each with 48MW of capacity.

“Paulínia is the ideal location for a hyperscale data center campus due to its strategic location in a technology hub. It is also close to São Paulo, the largest metropolitan region in South America and an important financial, technology and innovation center,” Gabriel Alday, CloudHQ business development and leasing manager, told BNAmericas.

Rostelecom launches new data center in Moscow

Rostelecom has launched a new data center in Moscow. Rostelecom’s Dataline data center unit this week announced it had launched a new facility on Chermyanskaya street in the Medvedkovo area of Moscow.

The new facility totals 20,000 sqm (215,280 sq ft) and features 16 data halls with the capacity for 312 racks each. The site offers a total of 36MW.

Phase one has launched with 9MW of capacity across 1,248 racks. Phase 2, with a further 1,248 racks is due to launch by May of this year, while the company said the site should be fully commissioned by the end of 2023.

Last year, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Rostelecom said it had suspended the development of a number of data centers due to a lack of access to equipment. The partially state-owned telecoms and colocations provider said that it could no longer build facilities in Russia’s western ‘Central Federal District’ due to parts issues.

eStruxture opens second data center in Calgary, Canada

eStruxture has opened its second colocation data center in Calgary, Canada.

The new facility, Cal-2, spans 93,000 sq ft (8640 sqm) and offers 20MW of capacity to cloud service providers and network carriers. According to the company, Cal-2 has been built to Tier III standards.

“This new data center opening is a key milestone for our company, with Calgary becoming one of Canada’s critical data center hubs, and it’s a great example of our unwavering commitment to growing our business in Canada and to continuing to invest in sustainable and efficient state-of-the-art facilities,” said Todd Coleman, president and CEO of eStruxture.

The new data center is anticipated to bring jobs to the area for skilled technical workers and engineers and hopes to also attract other large technology companies to the area.

Evocative appoints Derek Garnier as CEO

US data center firm Evocative has appointed Derek Garnier as its chief executive officer.

Garnier succeeds founder Arman Khalili, who will continue to serve on Evocative’s board of directors.

“Derek has proven himself as a capable leader and the obvious successor during his tenure at Evocative,” said Evocative board member Will Palmer. “His proven track record in the industry combined with his executive leadership experience will no doubt continue Evocative’s momentum as our new CEO.”

Garnier served Evocative as president and COO for two years until the end of 2019, at which point he left, returning to the same role in March 2022. In the interim, he co-founded US dark fiber firm Arcadian Infracom. Earlier in his 35-year career, he was CEO at Layer 42 and held roles at Wave Broadband, QTS, UnitedLayer, AboveNet, and others.

Valley Oak proposes 90MW data center in Fremont, California

A new 90MW data center is being proposed in Fremont, California.

BizJournal reports Valley Oak Partners this month submitted an application for a 490,000 square-foot (45,520 sqm) data center on roughly 12.5 acres at 37887 Shinn Street in Alameda County.

According to the company’s application on the City of Fremont website, the facility will have a 90MW connection from PG&E at full build-out, and would include 35x 3MW backup generators. Timelines for development weren’t shared.

In the application, Valley Oak said the data center would ‘serve as a place for clients to either relocate their data servers or expand their data capacity.’

Mexico’s Kio planning third data center in Querétaro

Mexican data center firm Kio Networks is planning a third data center in the state of Querétaro. The company this week announced the acquisition of 25,000 sqm (269,100 sq ft) of land in Querétaro for the construction of a new data center.

QRO3 will be the company’s third facility in the region and is scheduled for completion in 2024. Further details about capacity or facility size weren’t shared.

Launched in 2007 and located at Cerrada de la Princesa No. 4 in the Parque Industrial El Marqués, the 2.5MW QRO1 offers 4,100 sqm across five data halls. The fifth data hall was launched in February 2022.

QR02 is in development; the company is set to break ground this quarter. Located next to QRO1, the facility is set to double the campus’ capacity.

Meta sells land in Mesa, Arizona to data center developer EdgeCore

Meta has sold land in Mesa, Arizona, to data center developer company EdgeCore Internet Real Estate for ~$1.2 million.

Located at 3856 S. Everton Terrace and totaling around 15 acres of land, EdgeCore has purchased the lot as part of its large investment in the Phoenix metro.

The Phoenix Business Journal reported that Meta has sold the land as it didn’t need it, and wouldn’t be working with EdgeCore on further development. The adjacent parcel of land that Meta also owns has not been sold.

According to Inflect, EdgeCore is planning to build a 225MW data center campus on the land. The total floor space is expected to reach 1.2m sq ft (~116,130 sqm) and will offer wholesale leases. DCD has reached out to EdgeCore for comment.

Gaw partners with A3, sets up new data center firm

Gaw Capital Partners and A3 Capital have formed a new data center joint venture platform focused on Southeast Asia.

Real estate private equity firm Gaw this week announced the new JV, which will invest into ‘greenfield and under-performing data center assets’ across key markets in Southeast Asia.

The new JV has also launched Infinaxis Data Centre, a new company to develop and operate data centers in the region.

The data center assets under the JV will be managed by Infinaxis and staffed by the data center team originally under A3 Capital.