Datasource May 2018

DATASOURCE DATA CENTRE MARKET NEWS

ISSUE 171 MAY 2018

UK DATA CENTRES WILL BE WORTH $135BN BY 2025

NEWS GLOBAL EVENTS

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DATASOURCE 05/2018 Chris Jones Head of Data Centres GVA

NEWS

Every month Datasource reports the news and trends that matter to data centre occupiers around the world.

3 World 9

GVAÂ is a leading expert in the UK data centre market.

We specialise in analysing, acquiring and marketing technical space from development land right through to shell & core, operational facilities and colocation suites.

Since 2000 we have transacted 500,000 m2 of technical space and a gigawatt of energy.

Europe, Middle East and Africa

18 Americas 22

Asia Pacific

EVENTS 28 Americas

We work for a full spectrum of public and private sector clients from government entities to investment banks and from data centre providers to property developers.

29 Asia Pacific

How can we help you?

27 Europe, Middle East and Africa

ABOUT US 30 About GVA Data Centres

Our core services

170 offices 27 countries Transacted over

500,000m2 (1 gigawatt) of IT space and power

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WORLD Cloud and hybrid IT top priorities for IT professionals despite the AI hype SolarWinds got over 800 senior staff to chew the fat on digital transformation, and cloud and hybrid IT are clearly in front of artificial intelligence and machine learning when it comes to strategies for improving the business.

While there is much hype around machine learning and artificial intelligence, for the majority of IT professionals the technology priority over the next five years is cloud computing and hybrid IT (the mixture of on-premise and cloud systems), according to global research.

The research – conducted by IT management software provider SolarWinds – among over 800 IT practitioners, managers and directors, found that 94% percent of them put cloud and hybrid IT among their five most important technologies. Over half – 51% – said cloud/hybrid IT was their most important technology going forward.

When ranking the most important technologies today and for digital transformation over the next three to five years, as well as technologies with the greatest potential to provide productivity/ efficiency benefits and ROI, IT professionals ranked cloud and hybrid IT as number one across the board.

Automation ranked as the number two priority for technology strategy today, as well as for the greatest potential to provide productivity/efficiency benefits and ROI today. IT professionals ranked big data analytics as number two when it comes to

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technologies/management tools needed for digital transformation over the next three to five years.

In terms of supporting cloud and digital transformation, 44 percent of respondents ranked containers as the most important technology priority three to five years from now. The ability for container deployments to simplify application challenges introduced by hybrid IT, has caused IT professionals’ investment in container technology to “skyrocket” in the last 12 months, said SolarWinds.

Concurrently, AI and machine learning investments are expected to increase in importance over the next three to five years, with 37% of respondents indicating that AI is the biggest priority and 31% of respondents saying that ML is the main priority over this period.

“Cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are investing heavily in AI technologies and capabilities, which presents an opportunity for IT professionals to leverage existing investments in cloud offerings to experiment with and deploy AI-based services in their organisations,” said SolarWinds.

For its research, SolarWinds questioned IT professionals in North America, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.

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Equinix, Google deepen global cloud partnership with new Interconnect service A new solution to connect the unconnected designed to allow customers to deploy Google Cloud Platform by enabling connectivity via partner channels.

Google and Equinix have extended their partnership with the introduction of Google Cloud Partner Interconnect, a new service from Google Cloud that allows customers to connect to Google Cloud Platform from anywhere through its partners.

Partner Interconnect is a new product in the Google Cloud Interconnect family and it has been designed to allow customers to deploy Google Cloud Platform by enabling connectivity via partner channels, including Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric), an on-demand platform that enables Equinix customers to connect to any other customer from any Equinix location.

Equinix explained that this expands market opportunities for customers seeking direct connectivity to Google Cloud Platform, as ECX Fabric will offer remote connectivity to Equinix locations globally.

“In addition to leveraging an on-demand use model, enterprises deploying Partner Interconnect will also be able to select from a variety of sub-rate interface speeds varying from 50Mbps to 10Gbps,” the company said.

In addition to the introduction of Partner Interconnect in the Equinix ecosystem, the colocation operator has also announced its expansion of private connectivity to Google’s Dedicated Interconnect cloud service to the Stockholm, Sydney and Munich metros, bringing the total number of markets where Google has deployed its Dedicated Interconnect service in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres to 20, globally.

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Equinix offers today direct and on-demand access to Google Cloud services on a global scale through Equinix IBX data centres in the Americas (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, São Paulo, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Toronto, Washington, D.C.), EMEA (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Stockholm) and APAC (Hong Kong, Osaka, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo) regions.

The company’s portfolio has currently 200 operational facilities, following the closing of Australian data centre services provider Metronode.

John Veizades, Product Manager, Google Cloud, said: “Partner Interconnect gives Google Cloud customers even more connectivity choices for hybrid environments. Together with Equinix, we are making it easier for customers to extend their on-premises infrastructure to the Google Cloud Platform.”

Brian Lillie, Chief Product Officer, Equinix, said: “By providing access to Google’s Dedicated Interconnect and Partner Interconnect cloud services, and expanding these offerings into more markets worldwide, we are helping enterprises leverage Google’s network and accelerate their hybrid cloud strategies globally.

“With greater connectivity options and increased accessibility to the Google Cloud, Equinix is empowering customers with choices they can make to meet their interconnection needs, and easily build the cloud of their choice.”

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Tribal drums up profit and strikes Rackspace Cloud colocation deal Rackspace in the frame for supporting Tribal’s expanding cloud software business as global company makes a modest profit for the first time in four years.

Education software and services supplier Tribal Group has returned to an annual profit for the first time since 2013, and has gone into partnership with Rackspace to host its increasingly important cloud-based student information systems (SIS).

“Ongoing investment in the development of a next generation, cloud-based platform for student information systems provides a roadmap for new and existing customers into the future,” said Tribal, which sells its solutions in the UK and across North America, the Middle East and APAC. Student information systems cover education management solutions that include management information systems (MIS), customer (or student) relationship management (CRM), and business insight and data analytics products.

Annually recurring revenues for 2017, which from last year included cloud services, increased by 5.5% to £37.5m (2016: £35.5m). Richard Last, chairman of Tribal, said: “We will continue to reshape our product development and customer-facing support businesses to provide a more agile and responsive customer-facing environment.

31 December 2017, overall revenues fell 6% to £84.9m, compared to the £90.3m in 2016. Sales relating to continuing operations actually increased by 6.5% to £81.9m, compared to £76.9m last time.

The adjusted operating profit was up by 82% to £8.5m (£4.7m in 2016), and the adjusted operating margin went up to 10.1% (compared to 5.2% in 2016). The statutory profit before tax reached £2.6m, compared to the £1.2m loss made the previous year.

Ian Bowles, Tribal chief executive, said: “I am very pleased with the 2017 results as they clearly demonstrate that the changes driven by management are having the positive impact anticipated.

Representing twenty-two months of a three year turn around, it is my view that we are very much on track.

“As part of this change, we are transitioning our current hosted customers to a new data centre, in partnership with Rackspace.

The investment in this migration will provide us with increased sales opportunities for hosting solutions to new and existing customers, as well as providing a resilient platform for our next generation, cloud-based SIS offering.”

“Our customers, partners and the broader team at Tribal are seeing the benefit of a clear long-term strategy and commitment to the education sector.” There has been a major cost efficiencies programme at Tribal, which managed to deliver £9m in annualised savings in 2016, and a further £3m of savings in 2017, said Tribal.

The overall Tribal workforce was reduced by 22% to 850 during the year.

Last added: “I see the momentum continuing into 2018 and beyond, as the group continues to drive cost efficiencies in the business and increasingly takes advantage of the international market for student information systems.” For the full year ended

Revenues are expected to be broadly flat in 2018, but the company expects profitability to continue to improve, with further efficiencies in the pipeline, it said. The Tribal board has decided to propose a modest dividend of 1p per share, to be paid in May.

CyrusOne plans fifth data centre in San Antonio after new $1bn loan The Texas move comes after the REIT announced it had secured an extra $1bn in loans to fund its international expansion after leading US technology companies have rushed to fill up its growing North American capacity.

its efforts in expanding its cloud business in the Chinese market.

This was followed by the purchase of Zenium Data Centers which saw it capture data centres in London and Frankfurt.

Dallas-based data centre firm CyrusOne has secured a new senior unsecured credit agreement, increasing the size of its credit facility by $1bn, or 50%, to a total of $3bn to fund international expansion.

“This new $3bn credit facility gives us substantial liquidity at attractive interest rates to fund both domestic and international growth opportunities, positioning us well for the future,” said Diane Morefield, chief financial officer at CyrusOne.” CyrusOne has already sought permission to build a new data centre in Dublin, Ireland and at the back end of last year it invested $100m in GDS Holdings to take an 8% stake in the firm and fuel

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News of the extra lending for global expansion comes as the company says it plans to build a fifth data centre in San Antonio, after entering that market in 2012.

CyrusOne operates around 40 data centres globally, with the majority of them in North America. Gary Wojtaszek, CEO of CyrusOne, said: “Customer demand in the greater San Antonio metro area remains strong. We will continue construction on our fourth data centre in the area and will start efforts to construct another facility later in 2018.”

The real estate investment trust (REIT) leases space in its data centres to other businesses, including Microsoft. CyrusOne is also planning a new data centre in Austin, Texas, which it plans to open from 2020.

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Microsoft’s Irish data privacy case ended? Not a chance The new CLOUD Act may have been seen by some as a way of solving matters, but the legal action is now set to roll on as the lawyers get their teeth into a new battle over data stored on foreign cloud servers housed by Microsoft.

Microsoft and US enforcement agencies have found common ground over the Microsoft Irish data privacy case, with both sides agreeing an end to existing legal action, but only after a new law was passed opening up a fresh legal battle over the matter.

The US Department of Justice has requested that the US Supreme Court dismiss a case demanding that Microsoft should hand over emails generated by an alleged drugs dealer, that were stored on a cloud server in Ireland. The legal case started in 2013.

or controversy between the parties with respect to the question presented,” Microsoft lawyers said in a filing.

This call has been backed by Microsoft which was resisting the move, while questioning whether the US government had the power to force the move when the data was stored in a foreign country.

However, Microsoft also supports a new law recently passed by the US Congress which allows US prosecutors to request such data, but which at the same time allows the type of defence that Microsoft was claiming, to prevent such demands being fulfilled.

All very confusing and “going round in circles” comes to mind.

But having a defence available to resist future data grabs from foreign data centres is important for Microsoft and every other cloud service provider, when the cloud industry is spending literally billions of dollars building new data centres in every major country to address “data residency” demands from customers.

The new legislation – the CLOUD Act – makes it clear US judges can still issue warrants for such data, while giving companies a way to object to such requests if they conflict with foreign laws. “Microsoft agrees with the government that there is no longer a live case

In a new court filing however, the Department of Justice says it has obtained a new warrant that will be governed by the new law. So the legal merry-go-round is expected to start again, with the lawyers getting ever richer.

Top Microsoft company lawyer Brad Smith has outlined the company’s approach to the new law in a blog, and he maintains it is a first step towards international governments working towards an agreed system to settling data grab requests between different countries.

One must also consider though that even without the powers the US enforcement agencies were seeking to use to get the Irish data, the US government also has the US Patriot Act at its disposal. This can be potentially used to force any US company with oversees businesses to hand over data stored in those foreign territories, if the US is deemed to be facing a serious threat from terrorism or serious crime from the parties owning that data. Like any law, it depends how it is interpreted, including the seriousness of the threats being considered.

Google expands its cloud subsea cabling system in Pacific to boost performance Consumers and businesses are being promised improved data services for applications like Maps, YouTube and business cloud services as a result of the expansion, being undertaken by NEC and Alcatel.

Google is further building out its subsea cable system to make its cloud services run more efficiently in the Pacific region. It has confirmed investment for its Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) Cable System.

Michael Francois, responsible for Google’s global network infrastructure, says the new addition to the Google submarine network family, combined with investments elsewhere, will give users access to “scalable, diverse capacity on the lowest latency routes”, through a constellation of cables forming a ring between the key markets of Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore.

“Our investment in these cables builds on our other APAC cable systems, namely Unity, Faster and PLCN, interconnecting the US with Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong,” said Francois. He said they would improve connectivity to Google’s five cloud regions across

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Asia and Australia (with more on the way), so that companies can “serve their customers no matter where they are”.

The JGA cable system will have two fibre pairs connecting Japan to Guam, and two fibre pairs connecting Guam to Sydney. JGA is being co-built by NEC Corporation and Alcatel Submarine Networks, with segments totalling nearly 6,000 miles.

Francois said: “Whether we’re delivering directions to Maps users, videos to YouTube viewers, or GCP (Google Cloud Platform) services to businesses, we know a fast and reliable infrastructure makes all the difference. That’s why we continue to invest in strategic routes, many of which require crossing oceans.”

In other Google news, the company is finally, really, planning to break ground for its long-delayed $600m data centre in Jackson County, Alabama. The ceremony, with local political dignitaries being announced – so it must be true – will take place next Monday.

The data centre was first announced back in 2015, and after other false promises, the last back in December 2017, work is finally scheduled to start. The data centre is expected to create 100 jobs –that’s $6m for each job created.

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Microsoft invests $5bn in IoT In next step to the network edge

Weak dollar boosts worldwide IT spending for data centre systems

The data generated by billions of IoT devices has to be processed somewhere and Microsoft is making the right noises about creating a comprehensive cloud ecosystem to do it.

Microsoft says it is investing $5bn in the Internet of Things over the next four years. Last year, Microsoft launched new network edge server systems in partnership with companies like Dell and HPE, to make it easier for organisations to connect to IoT platforms and their Azure clouds to manage and process their data, so this investment is the next step along.

Julia White, CVP of Microsoft Azure, said: “We’re planning to dedicate even more resources to research and innovation in IoT and what is ultimately evolving to be the new intelligent edge.

With our IoT platform spanning cloud, OS and devices, we are uniquely positioned to simplify the IoT journey so any customer – regardless of size, technical expertise, budget, industry or other factors – can create trusted, connected solutions that improve business and customer experiences.”

With the new investment, said White, customers and partners can expect new products and services, resources and programmes. She said companies including Kohler, Chevron, United Technologies and Johnson Controls are all innovating with Microsoft’s IoT platform, launching new products, solutions and services.

Johnson Controls has transformed a thermostat into a smart device that can monitor a range of conditions to optimise building temperatures automatically. In addition, Schneider Electric has built a solution to harness solar energy in Nigeria and is using Microsoft IoT technology to remotely complete maintenance on the panels.

The focus on IoT comes soon after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed a new structure at Microsoft to focus on IoT, the cloud and artificial intelligence. Nadella said the firm is creating two new divisions which will support the “intelligent cloud and intelligent edge”.

Martin Courtney, an analyst at TechMarketView, said of the investment: “Microsoft no longer doubts the scale of the commercial IoT opportunity now presented. And it is keen not to be outdone by its rivals – including Google, Amazon Web Services and BT Global Services – all of which are moving fast to stake their own claim in a rapidly growing market for IoT products and services.”

Currency movements, tax breaks and the thirst for data centre infrastructure, software and services have helped fuel the biggest rise in IT spending since 2007, says premier analyst Gartner.

US vendors are seeing a spending boom thanks to a weaker dollar against major currencies, with reductions in the price of data centre systems and software expected to make it cheaper to adopt cloud working. According to analyst house Gartner, global IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2018, an increase of 6.2% from last year. Gartner said this was helped by lower dollar prices on hardware and software across industry segments, including data centres.

That overall annual growth rate is the highest forecast by Gartner since 2007. Enterprise software spending – including software hosted in the cloud and software to access the cloud – is expected to experience the highest sales growth in 2018, with an 11.1% annual increase. The software industry, said the analyst, is “expected to continue capitalising on the evolution of digital business”.

Worldwide spending on data centre systems is expected to jump 3.7% in 2018 to $188bn. That is actually down from the 6.3 per cent growth last year, after a strong end to 2017 helped by temporary US tax breaks for technology spending enjoyed

by US companies.

The demand for hyperscale data centres from the main public cloud players though, and greater demand for colocation space from cloud service providers, is expected to make sure that the data centre systems market segment stays a busy one, although actual overall growth in 2019 will only be 1.1%, said Gartner.

The weak dollar means that companies buying cloud services and data centre infrastructure from dominant US suppliers, such as Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft, should be in a better driving seat than before when it comes to negotiating a price. Although, as always, dominant players will try and resist as much as possible.

No one suddenly got a half-price laptop in the UK, for instance, when the dollar went through the floor after 9/11, and US vendors have only just completed fully implementing price increases in the UK after the pound’s value was over 20 cents lower than it is now.

Other currencies will be in a similar position. The communications services market is the biggest, and will see 4.3% growth this year, reaching $1.452 trillion, Gartner said.

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Facebook settles $365m lawsuit over ‘stolen’ data centre technology Whatever the merits of the case, it has been suggested that the cloud giant was determined to clear the decks as it faces pressure from politicians, the media and other litigants over the ongoing data privacy scandal.

Facebook has settled a $365m trade secrets lawsuit over its alleged theft of modular data centre building technology, brought by a British company. BladeRoom Group took the action against Facebook and its partner Emerson Electric. The amount Facebook settled for has not been disclosed but the action against Emerson is continuing.

Emerson had argued that the current smell around the Facebook brand over privacy failings would affect its defence, and that the case against it should be either postponed or heard in front of new jurors at a later date when the circus around Facebook packs up and goes home.

The judge in the US case said jurors would be able to proceed and make an unbiased judgement in the continuing case against Emerson. Observers have suggested that Facebook lawyers may have been determined to clear the decks of this case as the company faces continuing political and media scrutiny over the ongoing Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.

Further, a class action lawsuit has just been filed by some of those said to have been affected by their Facebook data being shared with Cambridge Analytica . Facebook settled with BladeRoom before the fourth day of the trial in California. The lawsuit was served back in 2015, after Facebook and an Emerson subsidiary allegedly used BladeRoom’s technology to quickly build an energy-efficient data centre in Lulea, Sweden.

BladeRoom said Facebook then shared the modular technology as part of the Open Compute Project (OCP), which Facebook leads, to allow other internet firms to take advantage of it for their own data centre projects. OCP rules specify intellectual property can only be donated with the owner’s permission.

In its lawsuit, BladeRoom stated: “Facebook claimed that it developed an innovative, pre-fabricated and modular construction approach and, extolling its benefits, encouraged the entire data centre industry to shift from traditional practices to this new method.

“What Facebook did not disclose, however, was that this methodology and the detailed know-how supporting its use had in fact been stolen by Facebook.”

BladeRoom had previously shared details about its technology under a non-disclosure agreement with Facebook. After technical details were shared through the OCP, it was claimed by BladeRoom that it had potentially lost business from Facebook rival Google.

Facebook said it was pleased to settle with BladeRoom, “putting our differences behind us”, it said.

Majority of SMBs are not compliant with GDPR shows IDC research The deadline for the European Union General Data Protection Regulation to pass into law is fast approaching, and the analyst has found that the large majority of small- to mid-sized companies around the world have so far not complied.

Independent of GDPR awareness though, almost 44% of European small businesses and 41% of mid-size businesses say they still need to take compliance action. For non-European SMBs, the percentages are 38% for small businesses and a surprising and larger 55% for mid-size businesses.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), scheduled to become law on 25 May, establishes strict requirements for the way that personal data must be governed and protected. These requirements must be met for every citizen of the European Union, regardless of the geographic location of the company holding this information.

Potential penalties for failing to meet these requirements are severe – up to €20m or 4% of annual revenue for non-compliance in the most serious cases of breached data.

A significant share of small businesses in Europe though – over 20% in the UK and Germany – are not aware of GDPR, according to research from IDC, which questioned 2,200 SMBs across seven European and non-European countries.

For small businesses outside of Europe, about half are unaware.

Mid-size businesses show much greater awareness – 80-90% of them – across all geographies.

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Worryingly for their potential consumers, one third of European SMBs and more than one half of non-European SMBs have no plans to comply with GDPR at all, said IDC. Only 29% of European small businesses and 41% of mid-size businesses have taken steps to fully comply with GDPR. Among non-European SMBs, the share of prepared firms declines to 9% among small businesses and 20% for mid-size businesses.

Carla La Croce, an analyst at IDC, said: “When looking at GDPR in Western Europe, adoption is moving ahead as expected. Bigger companies move faster than smaller companies, and at a country level, Nordic countries are implementing GDPR faster than other Western European countries.”

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EMEA UK data centres will be worth $135bn by 2025 Business investment increases of 5%–11% in data infrastructure and new technologies could mean an extra $10bn in data value by then with new data centre builds expected to be brought online in the coming years.

In the report it reads: “Data centres create this value by providing and managing the infrastructure, connectivity and services that underpin success across the full range of economic activity.

Few industries are posed for so much growth like data centres are.

As adoption of new technologies and digitalisation of everything and everyone generates more data, dependence on data centres is only set to increase with revenues expected to boom.

“This includes not only I.T. and financial services, such as powering high-speed trading platforms and cloud storage services, but also other sectors such as agriculture where data allows more precise use of pesticides, better adaptation to weather trends and automation such as drones to survey crops.”

The first figures are now out on how much this will all be worth.

According to “The Data Economy Report” by Digital Realty, by 2025, UK-based data centres will be responsible for the storing of data worth just over $135bn annually.

The figure represents a rapid growth from today’s $104.7bn and reflects how data is making businesses’ existing services simpler, faster and more reliable, as well as enabling them to open up new business possibilities, such as new operating models, new revenue streams and new markets to enter.

Additionally, the paper reports business investment increases of 5%–11% in data infrastructure and new technologies like IoT sensors and big data analysis software could mean the difference between the UK data economy growing at its current rate and hitting the mentioned $135bn by 2025 and a best-case scenario in which it grows to $145bn by 2025, creating a $10bn per year data dividend.

Digital Realty has also found that on average, each new data centre in the up adds up to $622m to the UK economy. The lowest economic value a data centre generates in the UK has been calculated at ‘ just’ $415m.

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Jeremy Silver, CEO, Digital Catapult, said: “The UK’s goal is to lead the world in creating innovative businesses, and continued growth of its data economy is vital in achieving that goal. “The Data Economy Report provides a clear road map for businesses, suggesting that by investing in the right foundations, technology innovations and partners, they will grab a significant dividend.”

Rob Coupland, Managing Director EMEA, Digital Realty, said: “Data infrastructure and services underpin the UK’s digital economy but its value is often underestimated. With The Data Economy Report, it’s worth to businesses and the wider economy is apparent.

“We urge British businesses to invest in the right tools, infrastructure and partners to get more value out of data and take a piece of a £101.6bn national opportunity.”

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NASDAQ data centre outage forces Nordic stock market shutdown as a service mode

European commission threatens Google break-up over market dominance The latest threat comes as Google continues to invest in its European business, earlier this month it announced it was ploughing €500m into its Netherlands data centre operations.

The European Union’s competition commissioner is still playing hard ball with Google, threatening to break up the company in Europe if it finds it is abusing its dominant market position.

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager (pictured) told The Telegraph that a threat to split Google into smaller companies had to be kept open as the Commission continued to investigate the company.

Affected trades included Copenhagen, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn and Vilnius.

Oslo was the only market to remain operational during the downtime.

NASDAQ stock market trading was this Wednesday brought to a standstill after a fire extinguishing system at a Digiplex data centre went off impacting “vital equipment” which houses NASDAQ’s servers.

The 20,000 sqm data centre is located in Väsby, North of Stockholm. A NASDAQ spokesperson told Data Economy the incident “caused connection issues with Nordic and Baltic markets” and it “is still being investigated in the post-mortem” as of Thursday morning. Digiplex’s Niclas Nyström, Operations Director, Sverige, told Data Economy: ”On the morning of April 18, we had an incident where a fire system was activated at our facility North of Stockholm.

“There was no fire, however, a gas suppression discharge occurred effecting the data hall of one of our customers. The incident did not affect any other customers and the data centre remains fully operational. “We take this matter very seriously, we are performing a thorough root cause analysis and have engaged external specialists in this process.”

The outage led to a more than a five-hour delay in opening Nordic and Baltic stock and fixed-income markets. Affected trades included Copenhagen, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn and Vilnius. Oslo, which is not part of NASDAQ and operates independently, was the only trading house to remain open during the downtime.

Services went down between 8am and 9am CET and were only restored around 2pm, with equity trading beginning at 2:10pm.

The news agency reported that regulators are now going to investigate why NASDAQ took so long to bring the systems back up.

Last year, Vestager’s department initiated a record £2.1bn fine on Google for giving its comparison shopping service an “illegal” advantage in search results. Google has a 91.5% share of the search engine market in Europe. Google is appealing this decision.

The search, advertising and cloud services company is currently facing two other investigations by Vestager’s team, with the commissioner saying officials had “grave suspicions” about the firm. These investigations are focusing on the Android mobile operating software, which is used on the majority of smartphones in the world, and Google’s AdSense advertising system.

On a potential break-up of Google, Vestager told The Telegraph: “I think it is important to keep that question open and on the agenda. We are not there yet but it is important to keep an awakened eye.”

Vestager added: “There is no ban on success in Europe. You get to be dominant and you get a special responsibility that you don’t destroy the already weakened competition.

“We have proven their [Google’s] dominance in search and we have found they have misused this dominance to promote themselves and diminish competitors.”

Vestager has already overseen the decisions to order Ireland to tax Apple an extra £11bn and Luxembourg to levy an extra £220m in tax on Amazon, after both countries were found to have given illegal tax benefits to those two technology companies.

Fellow commissioners have also this month approved new tax proposals to force the likes of Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon to pay more tax. That decision followed a vote in the European Parliament by MEPs demanding action on the matter, although commissioners were already considering it.

The “preferred” option of the European Commission is to make the technology giants pay tax on profits in the countries where they made those profits, instead of being allowed to divert taxable profits to lower tax countries like Ireland and Luxembourg.

One of the organisations that will be involved in the investigation is the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) in Finland. Maria Rekola, market supervisor at FSA, said: “The stock exchange is at all times obligated to ensure its systems operate and that there is a working back-up system.

“In our investigation we’ll be looking into whether preparations were as good as possible.” As a direct consequence of the outage, the National Debt Office of Sweden was also unable to go ahead with a bond auction scheduled for Thursday. The auction will happen at a date yet to be announced.

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HIVE plans hyperscale crypto mining data centre in Norway The Canadian company is already active in Iceland and Sweden but the Norway expansion through the acquisition of Kolos is in another league when it comes to potential processing capacity.

HIVE Blockchain Technologies is acquiring Kolos of Norway for $9.9m plus shares to enable it to build a mammoth data centre to serve its blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure business.

Kolos is a Norwegian and American company that had set itself out to build the world’s largest data centre at 6.4m square feet and with up to 1,000MW of power.

Kolos’ primary asset is a 64-hectare property located in Ballangen, Norway, around 225 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, and ideally situated for the construction of a large-scale, climate-cooled data centre.

The property is in close proximity to a hydroelectricity supply at “highly competitive rates”, said Canada-headquartered HIVE. HIVE and its strategic partner, Genesis Mining, are developing a plan to construct an initial facility on the property accessing 30MW of power. It is expected that 120MW of power will be available to HIVE within a year.

“This is another major milestone in our continuing global expansion as a leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure company,” said Harry Pokrandt, CEO of HIVE. “Kolos will be a flagship data centre project for HIVE for years to come and has the potential to expand to more than 1GW or 1,000 MW of green hydroelectricity consumption, dedicated to blockchain infrastructure.”

For context, said Hive, the firm’s existing crypto mining operations in Iceland and Sweden will eventually collectively represent 44.2MW of consumption, also exclusively from green energy sources.

HIVE has an option to acquire four additional facilities in Iceland or Sweden from Genesis. Genesis supports HIVE with data centre infrastructure expertise and is HIVE’s largest shareholder.

Kolos says it has preliminary permission for the plans from the local municipality, which is said to “strongly support” the project.

Ireland gears up for $5.6bn data centre investment spree, more than doubling CAPEX of last 9 years COMBINED Power capacity currently operational amounted at the end of Q1 2018 to 480MW whilst 110MW are currently under construction and data centre projects with up to 320MW have been given full planning permission.

The world’s eyes are on Ireland as the country readies for $5.56bn worth of data centre investment from 2018 up to 2021. According to Host in Ireland’s 2018 Q1 Market Update report, annual capital expenditures are expected to top $1.36bn in 2018, $1.73bn in 2019, and $1.24bn in each of the years 2020, and 2021.

“Our partners in Host In Ireland such as Equinix, Interxion, KeppelDC and Digital Realty and EdgeConnex have all recently announced, opened or acquired new facilities in the Dublin Metropolitan Region and a number of new US Co-Location providers have purchased land and commenced master planning campuses.

The amount expected to be poured into Ireland amounts to more than the double of data centre investments carried between 2009 and 2017, which top $5.31bn. The report highlights a more “steady grow trend” in the Irish market, with the model capturing more new projects for future years.

The market report also looks at the power capacity currently operational in Ireland, which at the end of Q1 2018 amounted to 480MW. In addition, 110MW are currently under construction and data centre projects with up to 320MW have been given full planning permission.

“Our model selects an investment year for a given project, but in reality expenditure during the construction of a data facility may span several years,” it reads in the document. “The diversity of projects at various stages tends to smooth out our projection.”

Ireland’s data centre energy use amounts to around 0.34% of the global sector’s energy consumption which tops 416.2 TWh. Moreover, 40MW are in the planning process and 340MW are drawn under masterplans for new facilities.

The model assumes the postponement of the Apple development in Athenry beyond 2021. Amazon’s Project G in Blanchardstown was delayed by nine months in 2017, so its projected construction spend was moved out of 2017/2018 to 2018/2019.

Host in Ireland predicts that by 2024, the total requirement for power capacity in the Irish data centre sector will amount to around 1,200MW. Connolly noted: “Post 2021, we’ll continue to update our Data Centre Ireland dashboard in July, bearing in mind that these numbers do not include Apple in Athenry which as planning approval but no start date.

The numbers represent the investment in land, buildings and energy infrastructure only. The computer servers, storage, and racks contained in data centres are a separate investment.

Host in Ireland, in partnership with Bitpower, used estimates of between $3.7m and $9.25m per MW of data centre capacity depending on the type of facility to reach the final projections. Garry Connolly, president and founder, Host in Ireland, told Data Economy: “All sectors including Co-Location, Managed Services and Wholesale Co-location and Hyperscale are all performing very strongly.

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“It should also be noted that with the introduction of Data Centres into the Irish Government’s Strategic Infrastructure Act and with the blend of energy options now both direct grid and onsite / co generation becoming more the “norm” we would be cautiously optimistic that there is the basis for sustainable growth past 2021.”

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Quiet Q1 data centre M&A consolidation will give space to net loss of operators Market take up continues to grow despite a slowdown in M&A activity. London adds the most power followed by Amsterdam, but the Top 3 cities are set for some disruption in the next nine months.

With an industry used to multi-million Dollar mergers and acquisitions nearly on a weekly basis throughout 2017, Q1 of this year has failed to deliver on such a churn of deals. However, that is about to change, according to exclusive research seen by Data Economy.

In its quarterly EMEA report, JLL reports that there are a number of deals “either in exclusivity or due to come to market shortly”. This has led the think tank to forecast 2018 as a turning point for consolidation in Europe.

“Whilst we expect to see several of the new market entrants continue to strengthen their positions with accretive acquisitions we expect some of the largest remaining privately owned companies to be under new control by year end. This will lead to a net loss of operators in the industry consolidating control into the hands of fewer larger entities,” it reads in the report.

According to data gathered by Data Economy, 2018 M&As have so far accounted to at least $4.6bn, far from 2017’s record year of $22.6bn so far. Additionally, JLL’s report highlights that single asset trading volumes in the EMEA investment market remain small compared to other alternative asset classes.

Nevertheless, the company said it expects more significant transactions forecasted for 2018 across the European region, beating 2017 numbers, but still failing to surpass the record achieved in 2016.

For 2018, JLL forecasts over £400m in EMEA data centre asset investment, nearly £100m less than in 2017 and more than £100m below 2016’s levels. 2019 is expected to remain within the £400m range, whilst 2020 will hit the highs £450m.

In terms of EMEA single let data centre investment volumes, the number of deals has been falling since 2016, however, 2018 has already accredited more investment volumes than 2017 at over £50m with

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JLL also added that tension remains between the weight of capital seeking to enter the sector and the lack of available product across the main European hub markets. “As such we are starting to see investors targeting hybrid and new opportunities in established markets,” it said.

Market uptake beats 2017 Across Europe’s top five performing data centre hubs – London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin – Q1 2018 has added more power than the same quarter in the previous year. At a total of 42MW in the first three months of this year, the figure is well above Q1 2017’s 28MW. With the markets still weary of the real impact of Brexit, London has once more dodged the bullet and contributed with 19MW of uptake maintaining its leadership position across the region. The British capital was followed by Amsterdam with 10MW, which once more beat Frankfurt at 6MW, a trend expected to continue in 2018.

Frankfurt is, however, expected to have higher levels of take up growth than Amsterdam on an yearly basis from 2019 to 2021. The report shows that both Paris and Dublin remained slow in Q1 2018, similarly to what happened in 2017.

In 2017, transactions to split between single let real estate deals and individual operating facilities amounted to 10, at an average of 0.83 per month. However, during the first three months of the year, this average has fallen to 0.33 as only one transaction was consumed.

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a single transaction. 2017 closed with three transactions but just £50m in investment volume.

“Demand in London Amsterdam and Frankfurt continues to be dominated by take up from the hyperscaler community accounting for over 70% of the market during the quarter,” the paper shows. “The market in these two cities is being reinforced with active requirements from Asian technology companies resulting in a number of RFP’s currently in process.

“We forecast that this will account for circa 20% of take up across EMEA this year as large brands land initial footprints in colocation facilities. “We expect to see continued activity in Dublin from the incumbent cloud providers and Paris is forecast to sign a number of hyperscaler transactions during the year reviving the city’s place amongst the top tier.”

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Interxion provides colocation customers with direct access to IBM cloud

IP house colocation services in London Docklands now open for business

The expanding company had previously announced a major European-wide data centre expansion programme, and now it is making it easier for companies to develop their hybrid cloud strategies.

Interxion, the provider of colocation data centre services, has established direct access to IBM Cloud services across its European footprint through its Cloud Connect interconnection platform.

Access to IBM Cloud services is now available via IBM Cloud Direct Link, the network service designed to enable secure and fast data transfers between private infrastructures and public clouds. Cloud Direct Link is now colocated in Interxion’s Frankfurt and Stockholm facilities.

With physical interconnects established at these two locations, any Interxion customer across Europe can now have reliable access to IBM Cloud as they build their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

The company has gone for a modular payas-you-grow approach with its underlying infrastructure, with capacity expanding in response to expected increased business from financial services, gaming and online gambling.

Vincent in’t Veld, vice president of platforms at Interxion, said: “Enterprises are increasingly developing and implementing hybrid and multi-cloud IT strategies to gain better control over their total cost of ownership, reduce time to market for delivering new services and scale to their needs.

New company IP House has opened its London Docklands colocation data centre services business. The company’s data centre is built to Tier III standards on the edge of London’s financial district and contains 14,000 square feet of space, with the capacity for 512 racks across two technical data suites.

“Our Cloud Connect service is built to deliver private connections with predictable and consistent performance to IBM Cloud via a fully-automated and self-service customer portal.”

The facility is both cloud and carrier-neutral, with superfast connectivity to the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and multiple cloud platforms. IP House uses a category 6 backbone cabling infrastructure to deliver support for high-speed networks ranging from 10Gbps to 100Gbps, fully supporting businesscritical applications and data hosted within the facility.

Kit Linton, vice president of networks at IBM Cloud, said: “Enterprises are rapidly building innovative solutions on the cloud that leverage AI, IoT, machine learning and more. With IBM Cloud Direct Link access from Interxion campuses, our customers can create direct connections to IBM Cloud to maximise their data and help generate new business value.”

Interxion provides services through 49 data centres in 11 European countries. Earlier this year, the company unveiled expansion projects in seven cities across Europe in response to customer demand.

Interxion said it will construct its third data centre in Madrid, add a second data centre in Brussels, and expand existing data centres in Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Vienna. The firm has also added to its land bank in Amsterdam.

Interxion said it will fund the expansion projects through a combination of existing and internally generated cash together with credit facilities.

“IP House is committed to providing customers with a secure, competitive and resilient colocation service that safeguards them against downtime,” said Sean Hilliar, data centre manager at IP House.

Data centre design and build firm Comtec Power won the contract to deliver and deploy the underlying infrastructure in the data centre, which is aiming to attract high-value customers in the financial services, gaming and online gambling industries. The first phase of capacity, comprising of 192 racks, is available now to customers. The second stage will be completed “towards 2019”, said IP House, when the number of available racks will rise to 512.

Given the staged build of the facility, IP House has opted for a modular, pay-as-you-grow approach to deploying its critical infrastructure, using Schneider Electric’s NetShetler SX Racks, Symmetra PX UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems, APC by Schneider Electric Switchgear, NetBotz Environmental Monitoring and Intelligent Metered PDUs. These will all be deployed by Schneider value added reseller Comtec Power.

“Capacity, scalability and footprint were important considerations of the initial design,” said Ian Gregg, data centre specialist at Comtec Power. “The modularity offered by Symmetra PX will allow IP House to expand their backup power as both the data centre and business grows.

“These power modules and batteries have a smaller footprint than other products available on the market, meaning the space saved creates more room for customers’ IT equipment,” said Gregg.

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Lords committee suggests creation of ‘growth fund for SMEs and changes to the immigration system’ to make the UK an AI superpower Group calls for more transparency, more support for education on the uses of AI and a revision of the current liability laws which may not be sufficient when AI systems malfunction or cause harm to users.

A report by the UK’s House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence published today, outlines five principles in which AI should be based on and how the country can build this industry and lead it.

The Committee has called for these principles to form the basis of a cross-sector AI code, which can be adopted nationally, and internationally.

Entitled “AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?”, the study’s principles include for example, the premise that AI should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity, or that AI should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities.

Additionally, the report contains other suggestions and raised key questions on the wider introduction and reliance on AI systems.

This includes, for example, the need to ensure that individuals are able to have greater personal control over their data, and the way in which it is used.

Moreover, the Committees, chaired by Lord Clement-Jones, has also made recommendations for the setting up of a growth fund for SMEs and changes to the immigration system in order to support startups working in the field.

Furthermore, the group makes a strong call for more transparency.

It reads: “The industry, through the AI Council, should establish a voluntary mechanism to inform consumers when AI is being used to make significant or sensitive decisions. At earlier stages of education, children need to be adequately prepared for working with, and using, AI. The ethical design and use of AI should become an integral part of the curriculum.”

Lord Clement-Jones said: “We want to make sure that this country remains a cutting-edge place to research and develop this exciting technology. However, start-ups can struggle to scale up on their own.

Our recommendations for a growth fund for SMEs and changes to the immigration system will help to do this.

“We’ve asked whether the UK is ready willing and able to take advantage of AI. With our recommendations, it will be.”

Lord Clement-Jones, added: “The UK has a unique opportunity to shape AI positively for the public’s benefit and to lead the international community in AI’s ethical development, rather than passively accept its consequences.

The Committee’s full five principles are: –– Artificial intelligence should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity.

–– Artificial intelligence should operate on principles of intelligibility and fairness.

“The UK contains leading AI companies, a dynamic academic research culture, and a vigorous start-up ecosystem as well as a host of legal, ethical, financial and linguistic strengths. We should make the most of this environment, but it is essential that ethics take centre stage in AI’s development and use.

–– Artificial intelligence should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities.

–– All citizens should have the right to be educated to enable them to flourish mentally, emotionally and economically alongside artificial intelligence.

–– The autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence.

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The Committee has also picked up on the questions around liability law and whether existing legislation will be sufficient when AI systems malfunction or cause harm to users. The Committee recommend that the Law Commission investigate this issue.

“AI is not without its risks and the adoption of the principles proposed by the Committee will help to mitigate these. An ethical approach ensures the public trusts this technology and sees the benefits of using it. It will also prepare them to challenge its misuse.”

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Viatel appoints Microsoft veteran as CEO to grow business outside Ireland Want more international business? Employ the ex-COO of Microsoft Western Europe and the ex-president of the American Chamber of Commerce.

Paul Rellis, a former Microsoft Europe senior executive, has been appointed as CEO of Viatel and Digiweb Group to lead the company’s international growth plans. Viatel provides enterprise telecoms, managed cloud services and residential broadband services across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

At the beginning of 2016, Zayo Group, an international provider of communications infrastructure services, closed its €95m acquisition of Viatel’s pan-European communications network, including data centres. Viatel’s customers still have access to that network.

and his insights, expertise and networks both here and across Europe mean he is the right person to lead Digiweb Group through its next phase of growth.”

Rellis is the former chief operations officer for Microsoft Western Europe and the former head of Microsoft Ireland. He is also the former president of the American Chamber of Commerce.

“Paul’s international expertise as well as his deep knowledge of the technology sector will bring invaluable insight and leadership to the Group as it embarks on its ambitious plan for growth and expansion,” said Viatel.

Colm Piercy, Digiweb founder and CEO, is taking on the role of Digiweb Group chairman instead, as he also manages growth in his other companies. Digiweb Group uses the Viatel brand for business services and the Digiweb brand for residential customers.

Rellis said: “There are significant opportunities for us to build on our track record of quality and customer service for both commercial businesses and residential customers under the Viatel and Digiweb brands.”

He said: “We see significant growth opportunities both in Ireland and internationally and I am excited to work with the team to further build this great independent Irish company. We are particularly well positioned and equipped to support our customers as they seek to embrace the opportunities that digital transformation presents.”

Last year, Viatel expanded its high speed microwave wireless network in the Republic to Northern Ireland, providing businesses there with connectivity of up to 1Gbps, with the service supported by Viatel’s core fibre network in the ground. The service can be deployed by firms as either a primary or backup connectivity service.

The group currently employs 120 after adding a number after recent acquisitions. Piercy said: “Paul’s track record of business leadership

Zayo opens Brexit data centre Site in the British capital has been built to meet requirements for high-capacity infrastructure that complies with Brexit-related data sovereignty laws.

Zayo Group Holdings has opened its first UK data centre expanding European operations outside France less than a year before Brexit.

The facility, which boosts 30,000 sqf and 3.6MW of power, has been designed to comply with data sovereignty laws related to the UK’s exit from the European Union, scheduled for March 29, 2019.

The carrier-neutral facility, “which is located at the confluence of the UK’s major telecom networks”, provides extensive interconnectivity as well as access to Zayo’s global fiber backbone.

TJ Karklins, senior vice president of Zayo’s zColo business segment, said: “This new data centre strengthens our commitment to the UK, providing customers with an excellent option for colocation and high-capacity fiber connectivity.

The zColo facility, as Zayo names its sites, is located in the West side of the British capital, a stone from one of the world’s busiest airports, Heathrow.

“This facility will offer low-latency connectivity to Slough, city centre, and even around central London for connection directly to France and the rest of Europe. We look forward to delivering high-compliance, network-neutral solutions from our growing European platform.”

The company said the new data centre is driven by a commitment from a major anchor tenant and strong demand in the UK.

The London data centre adds to Zayo’s only other location on the European continent which is Paris.

In total, across the UK, France, Canada and the US, the provider operates 46 data centres – seven of them in Europe alone – in 29 distinct markets.

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ServerFarm breaks into Europe with London data centre buy

Colt extends cloud fibre links over continents by building second PoP in Marseille The deal with Interxion means companies can enjoy more traffic routes, lower latency and greater reliability for their applications and services, says Colt, as Marseille basks in its importance to the world.

Colt Technology Services says it has strengthened its position as a European cloud gateway provider, by building a new point of presence (PoP) at the MRS2 Interxion data centre in cloud hotspot Marseille. This is Colt’s second PoP within Interxion’s Marseille campus.

Marseille is a connectivity and content hub and gateway to three continents. MRS2, which will offer 4,300 square metres of equipped space when it is fully built out, is part of Interxion’s growing campus in Marseille.

The acquired facility was once used by a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary as ServerFarm continues to buy sites previously used by major technology vendors.

US-headquartered ServerFarm has entered the European data centre services market with the acquisition of an 8MW data centre located in Feltham, near London. The capture adds another 120,000 square feet to its existing data centre portfolio of more than one million square feet.

The data centre in Feltham was previously used by Deutsche Telekom IT services firm T-Systems to serve UK and panEuropean clients. T-Systems had already started an exit from the site to move to larger premises run by Virtus in a colocation deal.

“We are providing easy entry to the London ecosystem,” said Jim Shanahan, VP of global operations for ServerFarm. “Our quick-to-market deployments create a dynamic opportunity for businesses and we have already added several new customers into the data centre.”

These new customers may well include T-Systems if it hasn’t completed its migration to the Virtus site in Hayes, West London, seven miles away.

Close to Heathrow airport, the Feltham data centre is strategically located with direct connections to data centre hotspot Slough outside London and London’s Docklands close to the City of London financial district.

The acquired facility adds to ServerFarm’s growing data centre estate which already includes Moses Lake, Washington; Santa Clara, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Oak Brook, Illinois; and Toronto, Ontario.

ServerFarm’s Atlanta data centre was acquired at the back end of last year, and added 153,000 square feet to the company’s portfolio. That data centre was previously owned by chip maker AMD.

“Colt’s new PoP in MRS2 will further consolidate its position as one of the most connected operators in Europe,” said Colt.

Marseille has a strategically important geographical position with the landing of 13 major submarine cables there, and plays the role of a gateway between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Interxion’s Marseille campus is a hub for 130 connectivity providers so far.

Colt’s second PoP at Interxion will provide its customers with greater flexibility and diversity of routes for connecting to its high bandwidth optical Colt IQ Network. With this route diversity customers will benefit from greater resilience and an improved level of service, Colt said.

Leveraging the existing Colt-owned metro fibre network in Marseille, the new PoP will enable direct interconnections from the submarine cables to Colt’s multi-terabit optical backbone network, and give immediate access to over 100 top European peering points and carrier-neutral data centres.

Colt provides connectivity to over 40 Interxion data centres across Europe, including its supremely busy campuses in Paris, London and Frankfurt.

Andrew Edison, vice president for wholesale at Colt, said: “We focus on deploying the Colt IQ Network in strategic locations, where high bandwidth demand is important. By extending scalable connectivity to Interxion MRS2, we further illustrate that the company is Europe’s most extensive fibre network provider.”

Fabrice Coquio, managing director of Interxion France, said: “We share with Colt a common view about Marseille and its key role as a global digital and connectivity hub to connect the FLAP markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris) with Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Contributing to the expansion of major carriers like Colt is a key component of Interxion’s DNA.” Last month, Colt said it had made strides in “greening” its own data centres across Europe, with all of them now using some form of renewable energy. In practice, this means that nine out of the company’s 17 European facilities now run exclusively on power generated from renewable sources.

ServerFarm said the London buy would not be its last in Europe, as it plans to add extra facilities to its portfolio in both North America and across Europe.

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Google goes to war against Africa’s slow internet speeds Firm launches new solution in 26 countries and promises to take its fight against hard internet access to other emerging markets including Brazil, Indonesia and India.

Teraco expands its Cape Town data centre in response to cloudification

Google might not have announced a data centre on the African continent yet, but the company is committed to help the region make the most of internet services.

The search engine giant is placing its hopes on a new app– Google Go – designed to consume less data, require less bandwidth and work on any mobile device.

Launched in 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the app takes up less than 5MB to download and it has also been created to take the minimum space possible on the user’s phone.

This is done simply through the latest version of Google’s advanced compression algorithm, using up to 40% less data to display search results, which can also be accessed when mobile data or WiFi settings are turned off.

Google Africa Chief Marketing Officer, Mzamo Masito, said: “Weak data connectivity, high data costs and low storage space often make it hard for people to get the most out of the internet.

“Users come to us to experience the web and access accurate information quickly. Unfortunately users can’t always decide on the type of device they have or the kind of connection they are on.

“Google Go is designed from the ground up to address these issues and provide a seamless experience irrespective of what device or network the user is on.”

Masito also said the app will at a later stage be released into other markets including Brazil, Indonesia and India, and will be pre-installed on Android Oreo, Go edition devices.

The Cape town move will also be joined by an upgrade at the company’s Durban facility as South Africa continues to dominate the growing African colocation market.

South Africa’s Teraco is expanding its vendor neutral colocation data centre business with larger facilities in Cape Town. Teraco’s total power provision has grown to 50MW, nearly doubling annually since the business was started in 2008 after the SA telecoms market was opened up.

Last year, Teraco raised around $90m from Barclays Africa Group to expand its presence on the continent.

The company also announced recently that it will be a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute connectivity partner, providing clients with high performance private network connections to Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft Cloud Services. Clients can connect directly to Azure ExpressRoute via the Teraco Cloud Exchange in both Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk said Cape Town, though a smaller regional market for Teraco, has recently “started to flourish” due to the increased commercialisation of the cloud. The planned expansion of Cape Town will result in a facility five-times larger than the original footprint completed in early 2009. Teraco’s Durban data centre, the smallest of its regional facilities, is also on an upgrade path due to increased demand.

Teraco has now built four fully-operational data centres. Van Wyk said: “The African colocation market grew an estimated 15.8% in 2017, according to IDC, with South Africa being one of the top growth locations. “South Africa is well positioned geographically to service the needs of sub-Saharan Africa and on a colocation basis it is larger than the next 20 African markets combined.”

Van Wyk said Cape Town will be upgraded and extended as more local organisations and international brands look to colocate and offer services. He said the expansion of Cape Town is “strategic” to Teraco and in line with the rising demand for power dense environments from today’s cloud-driven businesses.

“The next generation of applications and IT architecture will drive power density demands to levels not seen in traditional data centres. This power-hungry environment will be the driving force modernising legacy data centres,” he said. “Cooling capacities and uptime requirements will also increase.”

As part of its business, Teraco hosts Africa’s largest Internet eXchange Point (IXP), NAPAfrica.

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AMERICAS Facebook opens up on privacy scandal as Zuckerberg appears in Washington Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is currently appearing in Washington to be interrogated by politicians over the privacy scandal. In a fast moving story that could potentially affect how internet service providers are allowed to operate using our data going forward, here is a round up of the latest developments.

It added: “According to our records, only a very small number of people – approximately 1,500 – explicitly opted into sharing this information.

The feature was turned off in 2015.” After initially admitting 50 million people could have been affected by the data collected by third parties, Facebook recently upped that total figure to 87 million.

There is speculation that this figure may well rise further, but in the meantime Facebook has started sending messages to those it says it has identified, warning them that their data was used against Facebook rules.

Facebook users have hit Facebook with a class-action lawsuit accusing it of “unjust enrichment” and “violation of privacy and consumer-protection laws”, when it permitted app developers and other third parties to exploit its “lax to non-existent enforcement practices”. This is according to law firm Hagens Berman, which has served the lawsuit.

In an attempt to help win back confidence among Facebook users, Zuckerberg has this week announced two initiatives. Facebook will begin verifying the identity of large Facebook page operators in order to help prevent the publication of fake news and false political propaganda, and, as a result, expose the interests of those pages.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District for the Northern District of California, seeks to represent those among an estimated 70m US Facebook users whose data was harvested in 2014, and which was “siphoned off” to third-party companies who purchased the Facebook user data to influence voting in US elections.

“If you had a Facebook account in 2014, and you or one of your Facebook friends used the personality quiz Facebook app ‘thisismydigitallife’, you may be affected,” said the law firm. Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, said: “Facebook has repeatedly failed to uphold its own privacy agreements and policies, and it’s brazenly neglected the data security of the billions of those who use its social media service.”

He said: “Instead of choosing to be vigilant, making appropriate investments in data security and stopping this massive harvesting of users’ information by third parties, Facebook stood by as the private information of millions was funnelled into the hands of bad actors.”

The lawsuit claims Facebook “breached its agreements with its users, violated its own policies, and broke privacy and consumer-protection laws”. In another development, Facebook has confirmed that private messages were included in the data grab.

Facebook says 0.5% of the 305,000 people who installed the dataharvesting app had given permission for it to access their Facebook inboxes. But many more would have been affected as the data haul would have included conversations with others. Facebook told the BBC: “Prior to 2015, Facebook’s platform policy allowed developers to request permission to access inbox content but only if the person explicitly gave consent for this to happen.”

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This means that managers of leading Facebook pages will no longer be able to hide behind anonymity and will have to expose their identity and possibly the stakeholders behind the page to Facebook, as well as the page’s source of funding and other details. Facebook will require the individual owners of the largest Facebook pages to verify their names by providing the company with a copy of their government IDs. It will also make them respond to a letter in the mail.

Dan Brahmy, CEO of Cyabra, a company which specialises in protecting brands and public identities from disinformation threats on social media platforms, said: “This is a welcome step by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Verifying the owners of the page will help to reduce the problem of fake news, but it is still only the tip of the iceberg.”

He explained: “Even when the page managers are required to be genuine, it will still be possible to continue to publish fictitious content through the users involved within the page.” Brahmy said the estimated volume of negative advertising on Facebook is about 6-9% of the total content promoted on the Facebook advertising platform.

In a second move, Facebook is opening a new academic research programme into how Facebook affects elections and society as a whole. Facebook is inviting outside experts to take part in a committee, that will be organised by the US Social Science Research Council. The Council will announce a call for papers and issue grants to fund the research.

The committee of academics and their research grants will be funded by a group of independent foundations. And unlike other studies about Facebook using its inside data – and conducted in close conjunction with the company’s product team – Facebook will not be able to review these new academic papers before they are published.

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Google FINALLY breaks ground on $600m data centre campus 1020 days after announcing the project Community grants and calls for proposals from data centre communities that will lead to less carbon emissions have also been made as company embarks on latest data centre adventure.

It might be one of the world’s largest tech companies, but even Google isn’t immune to delays. The company, which has been acquiring land in Europe and North America for further expansion, has put shovels and spades to work as it broke ground on a largescale 360-acre data centre campus in Alabama.

While at the breaking ground ceremony, Google has also announced a set of community grants, including the donation of $100,000 to the Jackson County School District in a bid to boost youth interest in STEM subjects.

Announced in June 2015 and located in Jackson County, Bridgeport, the campus will amount to a capital expenditure of around $600m and create up to 100 jobs “in a variety of full-time and contractor roles, including computer technicians, engineers, and various food services, maintenance and security roles”.

According to Google, the location was selected based on the available energy infrastructure and developable land.

The cloud giant has also launched an open call for proposals from data centre communities that will lead to less carbon emissions in the immediate region, including projects that will increase the renewable energy mix powering Google’s data centres. Projects can include efficiency enhancements as well as the generation of new energy sources.

“We will be looking for cost of generation, innovation, and total carbon reduction. Concept papers are accepted at any time,” the company said in a statement.

Dr. Nan Boden, senior director and head of Global Technology Partners for Google Cloud, said: “Google is committed to investing in Jackson County to create new economic and educational opportunities for the people of Alabama and the surrounding region. “As a native Alabamian, I am so proud to be part of the effort to bring this Google data centre to life in the coming months and years.”

Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey, said: “As one of the world’s most dynamic and innovative technology companies, Google’s products touch billions of people across the globe every single day.

“We’re proud that Alabama is playing an important role in Google’s future growth, and we look forward to seeing this data centre operation help power that growth.”

Equinix seals $800m Infomart deal with an eye on Latin America The Infomart is one of the largest interconnection hubs in the U.S. and is currently home to four of eight Equinix Dallas International Business Exchange data centres (DA1, DA2, DA3 and DA6).

Additionally, there is a sizable AFFO upside from the future development of the acquired land parcel that is adjacent to the Infomart Dallas building.

Equinix has completed the $800m acquisition of Infomart Dallas from ASB Real Estate Investments, in a move the company says will “enable further expansion” in the region.

Although based in one of the US’s most data centre active hotspots, Infomart Dallas will be used by Equinix to further strengthen its network of data centres across Latin America.

The debt and cash transaction provides approximately 1.6 million gross sqf of space, which includes multiple diverse fiber entry points and more than 50 tenants including networks, colocation providers and office tenants.

Bill Long, Vice President of Interconnection Product Management at Equinix, said: “Dallas is historically a major gateway to Latin America, serving Mexico as well as Central and South America.

The acquired portfolio also secures the ability for further expansion in the Dallas market through build-out of the existing underdeveloped capacity and additional capacity to build on land adjacent to the Infomart building.

The agreement was originally signed on February 11, 2018 and the acquisition was completed on April 2, 2018.

The Infomart building generated approximately $50m million of revenues in 2017. Of that revenue, approximately $20m was attributed to rent and maintenance recoveries from Equinix.

Equinix expects this transaction to be adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share breakeven one year from closing.

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Latin America in mind

“The Infomart acquisition combines with our existing operations in Bogotá, Los Angeles, Miami, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to give us a more robust Latin American footprint of network and content providers looking to grow in the region.

“It bolsters business opportunities for managed services and cloud services providers, which have high usage rates by Latin American enterprises. And it increases access to important Latin American financial ecosystems, including those built around the Brazilian and Mexican stock exchanges.”

According to the 2017 Interconnection Index Report published by Equinix, LATAM is expected to be the fastest-growing region in terms of Interconnection Bandwidth through 2020 as customers embrace an Interconnection Oriented Architecture approach.

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Google US data centre CAPEX tops $12bn creating 11,000 jobs

6 Million sqf of data centre space being built in Iowa’s hottest hosting spot Several billions of Dollars are being invested in the region which has seen Microsoft, Facebook and Apple set bases with large scale facilities.

Across the US several data centre hubs have been transforming communities and expanding hosting and connectivity capabilities up and down the country.

One of those hubs is located in the State of Iowa, in the Greater Des Moines (DSM) region, where there is more than 6,150,000 square feet of data centre space built or slated to be built.

Several of the world’s largest data centre owners call the region home, including Facebook and Microsoft.

To date, Facebook has for example constructed 1.5 million sqf of data centre space and has one million sqf under construction.

The total spend is expected to be around $1.5bn.

US investment mirrors what the company has been doing outside North American shores, with more infrastructure being erected across the globe, especially in Europe.

Google’s US data centre infrastructure has over the years taken shape through the investment of a grand total of $12.6bn in both cloud facilities and renewable energy generation projects to power those centres.

Of the amount, $10.5bn were invested in data centres alone which form a fleet of six sites spread across the country, a new report released by Google and done with Oxford Economics shows.

The cost of each site is as follow: –– Douglas County, GA -> $1.2bn

The Greater Des Moines Partnership association highlights that the data centre boom in DSM means high paying tech jobs in the region.

According to a recent study on the economic impact by Facebook, for every one Facebook data centre job, there are five jobs supported in the economy. Facebook currently has more than 300 employees in DSM and more than 20 positions open due to their continued growth.

As for Microsoft, the giant’s giant data centre buildings currently total a little under 1.5 million sqf with 1.7 million sqf planned for its third campus in West Des Moines.

In 2017, Apple also expressed its intention to set a foot in the region and announced 400,000 sqf of data centre space which will be a built in Waukee. Construction will begin this summer.

Elsewhere, LightEdge Solutions has two data centres totalling 78,000 sqf in Altoona and employs more than 100 people.

–– Coldwell County, NC -> $1.2bn –– Pottawattamie County, IA -> $2.5bn

Jay Byers, Greater Des Moines Partnership CEO, said: “DSM has built a reputation as a tech hub offering affordable renewable energy and high skilled talent.

–– Mayes County, OK -> $2bn –– Wasco County, OR -> $1.8bn –– Berkeley County, SC -> $1.8bn As of 2016, Google claims the data centres have generated a total labour income of $750m and $1.325bn in economic activity, with up to 11,240 jobs created throughout the US, including 1,900 positions across the six sites and 1,100 construction workers employed for maintenance work each year, on average.

“Data centre activity means jobs for hundreds of tech and construction workers, revenue for local cities and increased national and international exposure for our region.”

Deborah Murray, executive director at the Caldwell County Economic Development Commission in Lenoir, North Carolina, said in the report: “The greatest value of landing a Google data centre may come from seeding future economic growth and diversification in regions that need a boost.

“Google’s impact on its host communities starts with construction spending and data centre jobs, but the ripple effects include broad-based workforce development, new revenue streams, and a reputation as a good place to do business.”

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Interoute expands virtual data centre fleet to Brazil with new cloud region This is the company’s fifth addition in the Americas following Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington.

Cloud and network provider Interoute has set up a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) zone in São Paulo, Brazil, to serve one of LATAM’s hungriest cloud markets.

The site, due to become operation in H1 2018, is Interoute’s first in South America, and will deliver a range of connectivity solutions in collaboration with local partners.

This latest addition to Interoute’s platform builds on its existing Americas presence in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington.

The company said in a statement that São Paulo provides an entry point into the rapidly developing emerging markets in

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South America. The city is ranked by the Global Cities Index as the South American leader in business activity.

With services in São Paulo, Interoute’s global network will now connect 128 cities across 31 countries on five continents.

Mark Lewis, EVP of Products and Development at Interoute, said: “The economic powerhouse of South America is increasingly important to our global customer base, with São Paulo in particular becoming a magnet for cloud and SaaS. “Strategically, this is a significant development for the Interoute Enterprise Digital Platform as it brings our cloud and SD-WAN capabilities to a whole new continent.

“Our platform helps enterprises optimise the performance of applications deployed from SaaS providers and hosted in dispersed data centre locations around the globe; regional presence is key to accelerating that performance across our low-latency SDN core network.”

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ASIA PACIFIC Microsoft expands Australian cloud footprint to support government services The deal with Canberra Data Centres is designed to enable Redmond to win more government contracts in both Australia and New Zealand through improved security protection and network reliability.

Microsoft offers Azure from three cities in Australia, including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, with connectivity to Perth, Brisbane and Auckland, New Zealand. Other global providers, said Keane, are limited to only one Australian location, so “Microsoft provides the leading flexibility for both high availability and resiliency,” he said.

Microsoft has opened two new Microsoft Azure regions in Australia, designed to deliver cloud services specifically designed to address the requirements of the Australian and New Zealand governments and critical national infrastructure, including banks, utilities, transport and telecoms.

“We understand it is essential for critical national infrastructure to have disaster resilience options that can distribute data to multiple regions without compromising on retaining data residency within Australian borders,” Keane said.

Plans for the regions were first announced last August. Tom Keane, head of global infrastructure at Microsoft Azure, said: “To support the mission-critical work of crucial organisations in Australia and New Zealand, we’re delivering our global cloud platform through a unique partnership with Canberra Data Centres.”

He said: “A key to our new Australia Central regions is the ability for customers to deploy their own applications and infrastructure within Australian-owned Canberra Data Centres directly connected via Azure ExpressRoute to Microsoft’s global network.”

Keane said this offers greater flexibility and “surety on network performance and security”. Australian federal government customers can leverage their Intra Government Communications Network (ICON) for direct connectivity.

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The Victorian Supreme Court in Australia is currently undertaking a digital transformation project which uses Azure to connect all 34 courtrooms and underpin a digital case management solution to streamline and speed the process of justice.

Microsoft recently announced plans for two new Azure Government United States regions for data classified as “secret”, and the availability of Azure regions in France and plans to deliver cloud services from new regions in Switzerland, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

News of the Azure expansion comes as Oracle has also just announced the availability of enhanced cloud services in the UK, which further support Oracle’s PaaS and IaaS services. The Oracle UK Region is now made up of three physically separate, high bandwidth and low latency sites that operate in independence from each other to “ensure the highest levels of fault tolerance”, said Oracle.

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India data centre upsurge leads local giant to double footprint to 1.2 million sqf Two years after originally being announced, company seems to be about to break ground and bring two mega sites online before the end of 2018.

India’s digitalisation strategies are starting to challenge current IT infrastructure capacity leading to the build-up of new facilities.

The latest company to have announced a large expansion plan is NTT Communications’ Netmagic, which has unveiled plans to build 550,000 sqf worth of data centre space with a CAPEX of $160m.

The operator will erect and bring online in 2018 a 250,000 sqf hub in Bengaluru and a 300,000 sqf centre in Mumbai. In addition, a third campus expansion could be made in Chennai.

The new data centres were originally announced in April 2016 and were part of a two-year expansion plan that would see the two facilities operational by April 2018.

A Netmagic spokesperson told Data Economy: “Our parent Company, NTT Com has decided to invest more than 160 million USD on the two upcoming data centers in Mumbai and Bangalore. These data centers will become operational this year.”

Netmagic said at the time it was waiting for fund infusion in the range of some Rs2,000 crore to initiate the construction work of the two planned facilities.

The two new data centres will add to other nine currently operational across India which amount to 600,000 sqf of space.

The nine facilities include five in Mumbai, two in Bengaluru, one in Chennai and one in Noida.

Data Economy has contacted Netmagic for further clarification on the capital expenditure plan associated with the project.

In a recent interview with Data Economy Magazine Global Cloud Xchange’s CEO Bill Barney speaks of India’s growing digital society and its demands.

As one of the country’s largest telecommunications and cloud brands, Global Cloud Xchange has also announced expansion projects that will increase its national portfolio considerably.

Sunil Gupta, executive director and president of Netmagic, told local press: “We have been continuing to invest in hyper-scale data centre space and will soon embark upon our next level of growth by buying land to set up new campuses in Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru.”

NextDC to inject $281m into acquisition of 3 data centres With today’s announcement, NextDC has also issued a guidance for its full year 2018 financial results, which the company expects to range between AU$152m and AU$158m, 23% up on FY17.

Of the AU$281m, AU$87m will be invested in the acquisition of the Sydney site – S3 – which amounts to a total power of 80MW.

Australian data centre services provider NextDC has announced a capital raising round of AU$281m [US$219m as of April 17] to be used in the acquisition of three sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Lastly, the company has not given a specific value for the land purchase cost of the M3 Melbourne site which also amounts to 80MW of power.

AU$102m will be pumped into the acquisition (AU$22m) and development (AU$80m) of the 21MW+ P2 site in Perth.

Additionally, the capital will also be used in the further development of the Perth data centre, named P2, with the addition of 1MW and extra server capacity.

Craig Scroggie, Chief Executive Officer for NEXTDC, said: “We are incredibly excited by the breadth and depth of these new investments that will further support the exponential growth of the digital economy in Australia.

The institutional placement includes an investment of AU$150m from UniSuper. The equity funding adds to NEXTDC’s current liquidity (cash and undrawn committed debt facilities) of AU$478m [US$372m] at 31 of March 2018.

“Over time these new infrastructure developments are expected to be the largest of their kind in Australia. These important strategic investments will extend our world class operation of Tier IV data centres across the Australian landscape.”

The placement is fully underwritten by the Sole Lead Manager and Bookrunner, Citigroup Global Markets Australia which will conduct a variable price bookbuild with existing institutional shareholders and new eligible institutional investors to determine the issue price for the General Placement. The General Placement underwritten floor price is $6.43 per share.

NextDC operates today seven sites. Additionally, the company is currently building a new facility in Sydney and has three more infrastructure assets under planning and development.

Cadence Advisory is acting as financial adviser and Herbert Smith Freehills as legal adviser to NEXTDC in relation to the capital raising.

With today’s announcement, NextDC has also issued a guidance for its full year 2018 financial results, which the company expects to range between AU$152m and AU$158m, 23% up on FY17. Capital expenditure on existing facilities for FY18 has been calculated at between AU$220m and AU$240m.

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Once all sites are brought online the three intended to be acquitted through the capital raising round, the company’s portfolio will amount to 14 buildings and 300MW of power.

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Telin Hong Kong launches data centre connected to SUNeVision and Equinix

Equinix closes Metronode acquisition, eyes $35bn Australian market M&A brings operator’s number of facilities worldwide to 200 making Equinix the first colocation company in history to hold a portfolio with that amount of data centres.

Equinix has closed the acquisition of Australian data centre services provider Metronode making the company one of the largest colocation providers in the country.

The acquisition, valued at around $804m, places Equinix at 15 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres nationwide.

It expands the company’s operations in Sydney and Melbourne and provides a presence in four new markets: Perth, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane.

New addition adds to 45,000 sqf of data centre space owned by parent company Telekomunikasi Indonesia whose revenues in 2016 topped nearly $9bn.

Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Hong Kong), (Telin Hong Kong), a subsidiary of PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin) has brought online its latest data centre estate in the city also known as Pearl of the Orient.

The Hong Kong infrastructure located at Itech Tower 2 as been named neuCentrIX HK-1 and is equipped with capacity 600-800 KVA with 200 rack (3-4 KVA max/rack). The data centre is connected to MEGA-I, a SUNeVision iAdvantage centre, and Equinix.

The site has been designed to deliver data centre services including collocation, network and connectivity, IP transit, Direct Internet Access, Content Delivery Network, Cloud services, Inter-rack connection, smart hand and storage space provision.

The opening of the site attended by industry leaders and the ribbon cutting ceremony was trusted to Director of Carrier & International Business Telkom, Abdus Somad Arief and CEO Telin, Faizal R. Djoemadi.

Faizal said: “We established neuCentrIX with such designed capacity to provide colocation and hosting services to small and big enterprises in APAC and Greater China regions. This data center will also provide other value-added services such as Inter-rack cabling, Smart hand, Storage space, Meeting Room, and Remote Peering over Telin’s Point of Presence.”

The closure follows an agreement Equinix made with Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in December 2017 to acquire all the equity interests in Metronode group of companies.

Equinix’s all-cash deal comes at a time when, according to joint research from Microsoft and IDC, digital transformation is expected to add as much as approximately $35bn to Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2021.

The Metronode assets add more than 860,000 square feet of land, 90% of which is owned, to the global portfolio of Equinix.

These sites add approximately 215,000 square feet of gross colocation space in Australia.

The acquisition furthers local growth momentum for Equinix which has recently completed the phase two expansion of its Sydney 4 IBX (SY4) and the phase three expansion of its Melbourne 1 IBX (ME1) is expected to be completed in Q3 2018 The Equinix footprint in the Asia-Pacific region now includes 40 data centres and extends the company’s global footprint to 200 data centres across 52 markets. About 60 employees will join the Equinix team in Asia-Pacific as part of the acquisition.

Samuel Lee, President of Equinix Asia-Pacific, said: “The acquisition of Metronode ensures Equinix will continue to strengthen its leadership position in the Asia-Pacific region and support our ongoing global expansion while further enabling Australia’s digital economy.

“Equinix is increasingly helping customers to digitally transform their businesses through deploying high-level interconnections taking their infrastructure, applications and services closer to customers and partners.”

The neuCentrIX is the most recent product added to PT’s data centre portfolio in the South East Asian region. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, tbk (Telkom), the parent company of Telin, has, however, a global footprint built through its subsidiaries.

In 2016 alone, the company built more than one million square feet of data centre space, reporting general revenues of $8.7bn.

Some of the data centres are located in some of SEA’s fastest growing colocation hotspots, including Changi and Jurong and other neuCentrIX data centres in Jakarta, Medan, Bandung, Surabaya, Batam, Balikpapan, Jogja, Denpasar, Manado, and Makassar. These data centres combined amount to just 45,000 sqf of hosting space.

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NextDC rejects third offer price of APDC data centres down under

QTS signs ten-year clean energy deal with Citi for Texas data centre

The offer price has reduced from AU$300m to AU$265m since December, but Australia’s Asia Pacific Data Centre Group has failed once again to offload its three facilities to NextDC. Australia’s NextDC has opted not to buy three data centres from Asia Pacific Data Centre Group (APDC), that have now been reduced in price two times by the real estate investment trust (REIT).

NextDC currently leases these three data centres from APDC to offer colocation and cloud services to its clients. The three data centres are located in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

NextDC said: “The company has received and rejected a new pre-emptive first right of refusal offer of AU$265m from APDC in relation to the purchase of the three data centres owned by the APDC Trust.”

NextDC first rejected the APDC Trust’s pre-emptive first right of refusal offer of AU$300m for the three data centre portfolio on 28 December 2017.

The company then rejected the APDC Trust’s pre-emptive offer of AU$280 million on 15 February 2018. On this offer, NextDC said today (5 April): “At the time, APDC claimed this offer was supported by an actual third-party bidder. However, this undisclosed bidder subsequently withdrew its offer.”

On the latest rejected offer of AU$265m, NextDC said: “We note the absence of any announced agreement relating to the [data centre] portfolio with any third-party bidder.”

NextDC added: “The company further notes that the preemptive offer price of AU$265m represents a significant discount to the AU$280m valuation determined by the 360 Capital-controlled APDC board for the purposes of its 31 December statutory financial report.

“In the meantime, NextDC continues to proceed with its proposal to wind up the APDC Trust, and with the related court proceedings.”

Under the terms of its leases with APDC, NextDC has first right of refusal on any sale of the data centres. The ownership of APDC changed last November following a bidding war between NextDC and 360 Capital, with the latter winning the war by becoming the majority owner.

NextDC offered APDC AU$210m in cash for the three data centres last July. If a compromise cannot be found therefore, NextDC plans to take the matter to court. Those companies storing and managing their data in the three facilities in question will be hoping they don’t get caught in the crossfire.

Citi’s deal is part of a $100bn environmental financing programme for companies, and North America’s QTS was only too happy to sign on for the wind energy that it is buying through it.

Banking firm Citi has signed an agreement to supply renewable energy overs ten years to a QTS Realty Trust (QTS) data centre in Irving, Texas. The clean energy will power 100% of the 54-acre, 700,000 square feet facility.

The power and renewable energy credits will come from the new 200 MW Flat Top wind project located in central Texas, and represents approximately 15 percent of the project’s output. Flat Top will be commercial in the first half of 2018.

“This deal will provide a renewable source of energy as well as price certainty to one of our key data centres,” said Travis Wright, Irving site director for QTS. “It also demonstrates the value that comes from the close collaboration between our energy suppliers and QTS’ commitment to sustainability across its own operations.”

“Corporates are exploring new structures and evolving tools that provide more attractive allocations of risk, rather than locking into high risk, long-dated power purchase agreements,” said Roxana Popovici, a managing director responsible for renewable power transactions at Citi. “As clients like QTS look to ramp up their purchase of renewable energy, structures like the one employed in this transaction will become increasingly important and will be critical to scaling the market for renewable energy.”

The transaction contributes to Citi’s $100bn ten-year Environmental Finance Goal to support environmental solutions and help accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

QTS Realty Trust has also announced that Clint Heiden has joined the company as chief revenue officer (CRO), to lead QTS’ hybrid colocation sales and marketing efforts. He will report directly to QTS’ chief executive officer Chad Williams.

Heiden joins QTS from data centre company EdgeConneX, where he served as chief commercial officer for five years.

Prior to this role, Heiden served as president of Sidera Networks and previously held senior leadership roles at PAETEC, Cable & Wireless America and UUNET. QTS Realty Trust has also just reported that its financial results for the quarter ended 31 March will be announced after market close on Monday 30 April 2018.

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GDS Holdings buys Chinese data centre, promises to ‘pursue more acquisitions’ Site to expanded and double in size in the coming months as a “major cloud and internet customer” already occupies the first phase of the development.

GDS Holdings has carried out another IT infrastructure acquisition this time in Guangzhou, China. Financial details have not been disclosed.

The asset is a future 140,000 sqf data centre facility – GZ3 – and will be developed in three phases.

The first phase, comprising 71,000 sqf, is already operational and fully committed by a major cloud and internet customer.

GZ1 and GZ2 facilities create a compelling proposition that allow us to uniquely serve the needs of our customers.

“GZ3 represents our fourth acquisition of a data centre project in the past two years, and as part of our ongoing sourcing strategy, we will continue to pursue acquisitions of this type in tandem with our organic growth effort.

GZ3 is located in the same vicinity as the existing GZ1 and GZ2 data centres, creating a data centre cluster all anchored by major cloud and internet customers.

The addition of GZ3, when fully developed, will double GDS’ total capacity in the Guangzhou market. The acquisition is expected to close in the next couple of months, subject to customary closing conditions.

“In this booming China market, our demonstrated ability to provide continuous resource supply that underpins the expansion needs of our customers sets us apart from others and is a hallmark of our industry leadership.”

William Huang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GDS Holdings, said: “We are pleased to announce the acquisition of GZ3 that will further strengthen our position in Guangzhou.

GDS has over the last few months carried out several acquisitions, investments and signed up some large customers, such as Alibaba which became the company’s anchor tenant in Hebei.

“Not only does this acquisition meaningfully expand our presence in a key metro area, the value-enhancing synergies with the adjacent

The company has also sold part of its stock to CyrusOne for $100m as the US operator tries to expand its reach in China.

Australia gets first tier III regional data centre in Queensland Real estate and construction firm FKG Group is hoping to attract both local and international businesses to its Queensland facility which is supported by Schneider Electric technology.

The EcoStruxure platform is designed to deliver on power, cooling, security and energy management to support a Tier III rating. Incumbent telco Telstra was also involved in the connectivity of the facility.

The Pulse Data Centre is the first of three data centres planned within the Toowoomba Technology Park. DC1 consists of 720 data racks which will be delivered over four data halls. The first data hall now ready to lease occupies 180 data racks.

What is billed as Australia’s first Tier III regional data centre has been officially opened in Toowoomba, Queensland. Built

by FKG Group, the AU$40m Pulse Data Centre is underpinned

by Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT platform.

The data centre is aiming to capture both national and international clients. Customers ranging from leading financial institutions to government bodies and global brands are all being targeted to take space in the new data centre.

Peter Blunt, Pulse Data Centre general manager for FKG Group, said: “We chose to partner with Schneider Electric on this landmark venture for the innovation demonstrated throughout their EcoStruxure platform and their agility in supporting a project at this scale.”

Schneider Electric Pacific Zone president Gareth O’Reilly said: “In a multi-connected world it’s now more important than ever to protect critical information and data, so a Tier III rating is very important for the data centre’s customers.”

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The data halls are cooled by large chillers and multiple CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units on a dual feed, which circulate chilled water through a line which has been specifically designed to take advantage of the local environmental conditions – utilising free air cooling to achieve the best cooling efficiency for the building.

The data hall cooling is supplemented with small amounts of fresh air supply which passes through a filtered mezzanine plenum which is then either humidified or de-humidified to meet the controlled data space humidity and temperature requirements.

The facility incorporates a tri-redundant power train solution and is one of the first data centres in Australia to include lithium-ion batteries in the UPS delivery. With a designed capacity of 2.5MW of IT load for the first building, 16-cylinder generators were required as the backup power source to the facility.

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EVENTS

EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

23rd May 2018 DatacenterDynamics Espana Madrid, Spain VISIT WEBSITE

12th June 2018 Datacloud Awards Monaco

12th –14th June 2018

VISIT WEBSITE

20th June 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Africa Johannesburg, South Africa Details coming soon

Datacloud Europe Monaco Datacloud Europe is the premier congress and Awards for investing, powering, connecting, building and deploying datacenter, cloud and Edge.

Now in its 15th year Datacloud Europe has evolved as a recognised beacon of high quality content offering thought leadership across the critical IT infrastructure markets and has performed a seminal role as the international networking and deal making opportunity for old and new contacts alike.

With a powerful 3-day agenda including the Enterprise Cloud Forum, plus 2-days of deep content, the annual event attracts investors, financiers, business leaders and their enterprise customers in the stunning backdrop of Monte Carlo to do deals that influence outcomes for the next 12 months and beyond.

13th September 2018 Datacloud Ireland Dublin VISIT WEBSITE

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28th September 2018 Datacloud Africa Leadership Forum Marrakech VISIT WEBSITE

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AMERICAS 20th June 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Colombia Bogota, Colombia VISIT WEBSITE

26th June 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Webscale San Francisco, USA VISIT WEBSITE

1st –2nd May 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Enterprise New York, USA Rumours of the demise of the enterprise data center to be challenged at 16th DCD summit in New York.

As the IoT, Smart Cities, Big Data and Cloud drive the industry forward and now blockchain and AI join the affray, DCD Enterprise is about NOT forgetting the engine. Join 1,500+ professionals whose day job is to keep the digital world up and running. From “mud to cloud”, this event covers the full ecosystem for how enterprise data centers are being re-defined and how the economics of digital business, IT and data center service delivery is being re-shaped.

With 100+ hours of expert panels, keynote presentations, interactive workshops and roundtables, not to mention an expo showcasing 100 of the latest technologies - this really is the event not to be missed! In less than 48 hours you will network, learn and share your way to a more decisive 2018.

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ASIA PACIFIC Further event information coming soon.

7th June 2018 DatacenterDynamics Enterprise Shanghai, China DCD delivers a world leading series of events devoted to data center scale IT infrastructure that supports transformation in Cloud, IoT, Smart Cities and across the Zettabyte economy.

They focus on combining the finest ingredients available, to create the world’s best technology infrastructure conferences.

They blend the most significant people in the market, with leading edge content programmes and a range of delivery styles; served up in some of the world’s best venues. DCD connects the market-makers, informing, influencing and instigating change and development throughout this exciting sector.

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Contact us TRANSACTIONS

–– Colo & new build site finding –– Acquisition, disposal & marketing –– Sale & lease back –– Leasing and service (SLA & KPI) agreements –– Market analysis –– Benchmarking

CONSULTING

–– Country & Region analysis –– Total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis –– Total cost of occupation (TCOO) analysis –– Product development –– Planning strategy –– Permissions and approvals –– Power & communication studies –– Capital allowances –– Benchmarking –– Rent reviews –– Lease negotiations –– Property taxes –– Planning applications

Chris Jones

Senior Director Head of Data Centres GVA +44 (0)20 7911 2525 chris.jones@gva.co.uk

+44 (0)20 7911 2000 gva.co.uk

GVA London, United Kingdom: 65 Gresham Street London EC2V 7NQ United Kingdom

GVA GVA is a trading name of GVA Grimley Limited.

Where articles are sourced from external providers the statements and opinions expressed within them are those of the authors alone and not of GVA Grimley Limited or any of its associated, subsidiary or affiliated companies. GVA Grimley Limited will not be held responsible for any claim, loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of any information within these pages.

GVA for themselves, for any joint agents and the for the vendors or lessors of this property whose agents they are give notice that: (i) the particulars are set out as a general outline only for the guidance of intending purchasers or lessees and do not constitute, nor constitute part of,an offer or contract. (ii) a ll descriptions,dimensions,references to condition and necessary permissions for use and occupation,and other details are given in good faith and are believed to be correct but any intending purchasers or tenants should not rely on them as statements or representations of fact but satisfy themselves by inspection or otherwise as to the correctness of each of them. (iii) n o person in the employment of GVA or any joint agents has any authority to make or give any representation or warranty whatever in relation to these properties.