Data Center Investment News — 24/03/2023
Czechia search engine Seznam.cz launches data center outside Prague
Czech Internet portal Seznam.cz has launched a new data center outside Prague.
This week, the search engine and email company announced the launch of a second proprietary data center in Benátky nad Jizerou, called ‘Nagoya’.
The building, located at Průmyslová Street outside northeast Prague, spans around 1,200 square meters and offers 3MW of capacity across two data halls and 200 racks. It will target a PUE of 1.1. The company broke ground on the project in February 2022.
The launch of the new facility will see the company exit space leased from O2 since 2006 in the telco’s Nagano data center in Prague. The company expects to complete the migration by May of this year.
Microsoft plans three data centers in Malaga, Washington
Microsoft has filed to build three data centers in Malaga, Washington.
First reported by WenatcheeWorld, the company has filed to build three buildings on Malaga Alcoa Highway in Chelan County. Jim Kuntz, Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority CEO, said the filing was “good news.”
At a recent Port Authority board meeting, the authority gave an overview of the ‘Waterline Extension Project’ designed to improve water infrastructure in the area to accommodate the planned data centers.
In the filings, the Port Authority said it assumes the development will construct three buildings on the site by the end of 2025, with potential for two more buildings by 2027.
EQT still interested in acquiring Global Switch – report
Global Switch is still in talks with EQT about a potential acquisition.
Data center operator Global Switch, which is majority owned by Chinese steelmaker Jiangsu Shagang Group, has been actively looking for a buyer for almost a year.
Reuters reports the two parties are still in negotiations about a sale, after previous talks broke down over a gap between company valuation.
Global Switch had expected a sale to value it at around $10 billion but final bidders had valued the company at around $8 billion including debt, according to the publication.
Chile’s GTD sells stake in new data center unit to Macquarie
Macquarie Capital has acquired a significant minority stake in a new data center unit formed by Chilean telco GTD.
BNAmericas & LatinFinance report GTD has accepted a non-binding offer from investment firm Macquarie Capital for the acquisition of 49 percent of a new subsidiary covering the telco’s data centers in Chile, Peru, and Colombia.
The size of the deal wasn’t shared, but reportedly includes land flagged for future data centers.
Founded in 1980, GTD currently operates six data centers across Chile, Colombia, and Peru; three in Santiago and one in Peurto Monnt, and one each in Medellin and Lima.
Cube IM buys Nordic data center firm Glesys
European investment firm Cube Infrastructure Managers has acquired a majority stake in Nordic data center firm Glesys.
The terms of the deal weren’t shared. The acquisition has been made through the Cube Infrastructure Fund III. from VIA equity Fond III, Glesys founder & CEO Glenn Johansson, and other employees and minority shareholders of the company.
Johansson and certain key employees will reinvest in the Company alongside Cube to retain a minority shareholding and will remain as active key employees.
Stéphane Calas, partner at Cube Infrastructure Managers, said: “Cube invests in businesses providing sustainable infrastructure to growing needs in the market. Cube has partnered with several talented management teams to achieve strong and sustainable growth.
T4 Group to construct Tier 4 hyperscale data centre in Southland, NZ
T4 Group has confirmed its plans to construct a state-of-the-art green, hyperscale Tier 4 data center in Southland are on track, with stage one expected to commence between May and June despite recent uncertainty surrounding the construction of the DataGrid data center.
T4 Group COO David Simpson said they were currently negotiating land purchase and had developed numerous international partnerships, demonstrating a readiness to build a world-leading facility that would provide businesses and individuals with secure and sustainable data storage and processing.
“This is exciting for the region, as the majority of T4 Group is owned by Southlanders. “We’re thrilled to be bringing this level of security and uptime to the region and the project will also be a New Zealand first as there are no other Tier 4 data centers in the country.
“It’s wonderful to have this burgeoning industry in Southland, and even more incredible to have DataGrid’s journey take place alongside ours,” Simpson said.
H5 breaks ground on data center in Ashburn, Virginia
H5 Data Centers has broken ground on a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia after demolishing the data center previously located there.
The company this week commenced construction on a 42MW, three-story data center that will span 255,000 square feet (23,690 sqm).
The facility, located at Beaumeade Circle in Loudoun County, is available for pre-leasing with the first phase of development set to go live in Q3 of 2024.
“H5 Data Centers is investing extensively across our portfolio and today’s announcement of our Ashburn groundbreaking is an exciting start to a busy year of development,” said Josh Simms, founder and CEO of H5 Data Centers. “Upon completion, the data center will provide our customers with the ability to meet their stringent security and reliability requirements.”
NTT to build new data center in Bangkok, Thailand
NTT is to build a new data center in Thailand. The company this week announced plans to invest $90 million through NTT Global Data Centers to develop a 12MW, 4,000 sqm facility in Bangkok.
The new data center, known as BKK3 and to be located adjacent to BKK2 at the Amata City Chonburi industrial estate, is set to begin operations in the second half of 2024. It will off densities of up to 30kW per rack.
“The demand for data storage and managed hosting services is expected to grow dramatically across Thailand.
BKK3 will accommodate the needs of clients, particularly cloud service providers and the financial industry, which require flexible facility designs to help them achieve their business objectives,” said Suthipat Lueprasert, CEO for NTT Global Data Centers (Thailand) Limited.
Edge Centres launches first US facility in St. Louis
Edge data center firm Edge Centres has launched a new facility in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Australian firm traditionally provides modular ‘off grid’ data centers that are powered by on-site wind and/or solar power, and connected to the main grid for backup. Each facility is equipped with just under 1MW of solar infrastructure, 48-hour battery power, and UPS backup equipment, which supports 64 1kW quarter racks. The company says the sites can produce more electricity than they use.
Update: For the US facilities, however, the company told DCD it is sourcing power directly from the grid due to their size and the fact they are housed in dedicated buildings rather than modules.
“We are proud to announce the launch of EC102 St. Louis,” the company said on LinkedIn this week. “In less than 24 months, we have built and opened facilities in six countries. In the next 24 months, we aim to continue this rapid growth and open an additional 19 facilities across the US.”
OVHcloud launches data center in Mumbai, India
Data center firm OVHcloud has launched a new facility in Mumbai, India.
The company announced the launch this week but didn’t provide details about the location or facility specifications.
The facility utilizes OVHcloud’s proprietary water cooling technology, which the company said was adapting to meet the region’s tropical conditions.
“Since the expansion of our presence in the Asia Pacific market, the region has experienced phenomenal growth in its digital economy. India, Singapore, and Australia remain critical markets that are driving this growth from a business transformation and digital innovation perspective,” said OVH CEO Michel Paulin. “Data sovereignty and sustainability will continue to be key priorities that have to be balanced with rapidly increasing digital needs.”
Web Werks – Iron Mountain JV Launches its First Data Center in Bengaluru
Web Werks – Iron Mountain Data Centers (IMDC) Joint Venture, today announced the launch of its first data center on their campus in Bengaluru, India.
The data center is located in Whitefield, Bengaluru and is well positioned as a gateway to Southern India, the company said in a statement. Situated in an 80,000 square feet facility, the BLR-1 is a Tier III-designed data center that can support up to 4MW of IT load. Nikhil Rathi, Founder & CEO, Web Werks said:
“Web Werks Bengaluru data center will cater to the increasing demand from Hyperscaler and enterprises. We look forward to providing our new customers in South India with reliable and scalable colocation, cloud, storage, and network services. The addition of this data center is part of our national expansion and we are grateful to the Government of Karnataka for their support.”
Iron Mountain entered into a joint venture agreement with Web Werks in 2021.
Cisco plans to set up a new data center in Chennai
Networking, cloud and cybersecurity solutions provider Cisco plans to set up a new data center in Chennai, introduce new risk-based capabilities across its security portfolio for hybrid and multi-cloud environments and add several new features for its Duo Risk-Based Authentication solution.
The company will also invest in upgrading its current data center in Mumbai to offer enhanced security solutions to customers.
The investments will help provide security services to more customers in a seamless and scalable manner, according to a report by BusinessLine.
Introduction of new risk-based capabilities
Cisco is introducing new risk-based capabilities that will demonstrate progress towards realising the full vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, which will safeguard the integrity of an organisation’s entire IT ecosystem. This includes the latest innovations in Zero Trust, application security, and secure connectivity.