Datasource March 2018

DATASOURCE DATA CENTRE MARKET NEWS

ISSUE 169 MARCH 2018

EUROPE’S LARGEST DATA CENTRE CAMPUS TO GET A WHOLE LOT BIGGER

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DATASOURCE 03/2018 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.

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WORLD Oracle to open 12 data centres in bid for ‘most autonomous technologies in the world’ The regional expansion of Oracle’s cloud footprint will include locations in China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Canada and the US. Oracle has unveiled the largest data centre expansion of the year so far with plans to open 12 new data centres across Asia, Europe and North America to support the growth of its cloud business.

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, said: “The future of IT is autonomous.

With our expanded, modern data centres, Oracle is uniquely suited to deliver the most autonomous technologies in the world.

The regional expansion of Oracle’s cloud footprint will include locations in Asia including China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and South Korea; Europe including Amsterdam and Switzerland; and North America including two in Canada and two new US locations to support U.S. Department of Defence workloads.

“As we invest, our margins will continue to expand. And with our global data centre expansion, we are able to help customer’s lower IT costs, mitigate risks and compete like they never have before.”

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Hyperscale data centres to double to more than 600 amid cloud dominance hike Cloud is posed to be the dominant business driver for data centre operators representing 95% of the total traffic in hosting facilities by 2021, up from 88% in 2016.

Large-scale public cloud data centres, aka hyperscale data centres, are posed for a tremendous growth over the next four years with the number of facilities forecasted to amount to 628 by 2021.

The value is 290 hubs up from those operational in 2016 and comes as a direct consequence of the increasing need for data centre and cloud resources.

According to the recently launched Cisco Global Cloud Index (20162021), it is expected that by 2021 hyperscale data centres globally will account to 53% of all data centre servers (27% in 2016) and 69% of all data centre processing power, up from 41% in 2016.

Additionally, those 628 sites are expected to house 65% of all data deployed in data centre, an increase from 51% in 2016.

Hyperscalers are also forecasted to represent 55% of all data centre traffic in four year, a 16% increase from two years ago.

As for data centre traffic as a whole, Cisco forecasts cloud to reach 19.5 zettabytes (ZB) per year by 2021, up from 6.0 ZB per year in 2016 (3.3-fold growth or a 27% compound annual growth rate [CAGR] from 2016 to 2021).

Kip Compton, Vice President of Cisco’s Cloud Platform and Solutions Group, said: “Data centre application growth is clearly exploding in this new multicloud world. This projected growth will require new innovations especially in the areas of public, private and hybrid clouds.”

Other Global Cloud Index Highlights and Key Projections include: 1. Data centre virtualisation and cloud computing growth

3. Applications contribute to rise of global data centre traffic

–– By 2021, 94 percent of workloads and compute instances will be processed by cloud data centres; 6 percent will be processed by traditional data centres.

–– By 2021, big data will account for 20 percent (2.5 ZB annual, 209 EB monthly) of traffic within data centres, compared to 12 percent (593 EB annual, 49 EB monthly) in 2016.

–– Overall data centre workloads and compute instances will more than double (2.3-fold) from 2016 to 2021; however, cloud workloads and compute instances will nearly triple (2.7-fold) over the same period.

–– By 2021, video streaming will account for 10 percent of traffic within data centres, compared to 9 percent in 2016.

–– The workload and compute instance density for cloud data centres was 8.8 in 2016 and will grow to 13.2 by 2021.

Comparatively, for traditional data centres, workload and compute instance density was 2.4 in 2016 and will grow to 3.8 by 2021.

–– By 2021, search will account for 20 percent of traffic within data centres by 2021, compared to 28 percent in 2016.

–– By 2021, social networking will account for 22 percent of traffic within data centres, compared to 20 percent in 2016.

4. SaaS most popular cloud service model through 2021

2. Growth in stored data fuelled by big data and IoT –– Globally, the data stored in data centres will nearly quintuple by 2021 to reach 1.3 ZB by 2021, up 4.6-fold (a CAGR of 36%) from 286 EB in 2016.

–– Big data will reach 403 exabytes (EB) by 2021, up almost 8-fold from 25 EB in 2016. Big data will represent 30 percent of data stored in data centres by 2021, up from 18 percent in 2016.

–– The amount of data stored on devices will be 4.5 times higher than data stored in data centres, at 5.9 ZB by 2021.

–– Driven largely by IoT, the total amount of data created (and not necessarily stored) by any device will reach 847 ZB per year by 2021, up from 218 ZB per year in 2016. Data created is two orders of magnitude higher than data stored.

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–– By 2021, video will account for 85 percent of traffic from data centres to end users, compared to 78 percent in 2016.

–– By 2021, 75 percent (402 million) of the total cloud workloads and compute instances will be SaaS workloads and compute instances, up from 71 percent (141 million) in 2016. (23% CAGR from 2016 to 2021).

–– By 2021, 16 percent (85 million) of the total cloud workloads and compute instances will be IaaS workloads and compute instances, down from 21 percent (42 million) in 2016. (15% CAGR from 2016 to 2021).

–– By 2021, 9 percent (46 million) of the total cloud workloads and compute instances will be PaaS workloads and compute instances, up from 8% (16 million) in 2016. (23% CAGR from 2016 to 2021).

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EMEA Europe’s largest data centre campus is about to get a whole lot bigger Expansion comes as demand soars with new customer contracts worth in excess of £125m over the next five years including agreements with several Fortune 100 companies.

Simon Taylor, NGD’s Chairman, said: “NGD’s major top floor expansion project is providing a further boost to the local economy.

“We have over 500 construction workers on site plus around 120 further contractors providing IT and facilities management services. Our strong forward order book indicates that NGD will once again be a major source of local employment this year.

Next Generation Data (NGD) has announced the expansion of its Newport, Wales, campus with the addition of 250,000 sqf of capacity floor. The company said construction works are already under way employing more than 500 people.

“Our latest long term contract successes demonstrate major multinationals are continuing to find NGD’s UK-based world class facility is unbeatable on price and performance, especially when it comes to our space, power, connectivity and 100 per cent service level record.

The expansion comes as the company’s 750,000 sq ft multi-tier facility reaches 30% occupancy with 31 data halls in over 32MW of built space. The facility features a 180MW renewably sourced power capacity.

The need for expansion has also been triggered as NGD secures new customer contracts worth in excess of £125m over the next five years including agreements with several Fortune 100 companies.

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“NGD’s industry leading 16 week build out timescales and the financial resources of our funding partner Infravia Capital Partners is enabling us to respond extremely quickly to global market opportunities.”

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Equinix data centre architecture firm expands to cope with builds boom across Europe

Switch Datacenters launches DCaaS ready for open compute project architectures Company claims design would be a good fit for a wide range of deployments with potential electrical loads from 5 to 100 MW. Dutch data centre services provider Switch Datacenters has launched a wholesale data centre as a service programme built to speed up data centre deployments on a global scale.

The program lets organisations license the company’s patented data centre technologies and obtain an integrated, full-service data centre infrastructure package, including cooling, power and racks.

This includes indirect adiabatic cooling technologies, modular thus scalable solutions for power supply, and remote data centre management (custom DCIM software).

Company has been responsible for projecting some of Slough’s major data centre buildings which serve financial services and other verticals in the British capital and the rest of the UK. TTSP, the architecture firm behind some of the industry’s most high-tech data centres, has expanded its data centre team to cope with demand from new projects across Europe.

The company has appointed Nick Simpson to further develop the company’s Architectural and Data Centre offering.

He has over 25 years of experience within the profession and a track record of national and international mission critical projects.

He will be working closely alongside Director, Ian Miller.

The overall data centre design has a calculated PUE between 1.03 and 1.06, utilising pre-fabricated components to reduce time-to-market.

The actual pPUE figure will depend largely on the climate where the data centre build is being located, the company has clarified.

The data centre infrastructure is OCP-ready, which means that it is suitable for Open Rack Systems based on Open Compute Project (OCP) principles.

Switch Datacenters’ data centres delivered through the program are being built in the Netherlands, then shipped to worldwide locations depending on customer requirements.

Its built-to-suit data centre design has already been deployed for IBM in the Netherlands, for example.

Simpson will be leading a number of new data centre commissions in Europe and will add further expertise to delivering technology environments to the practice’s existing and new clients across the UK.

Gregor Snip, CEO and founder of Switch Datacenters, said: “Our Data Center as a Service program provides hyper-scale data centre providers, enterprises, cloud services providers and real estate owners alike the opportunity to deploy new data centres within short-term notice.

Most recently, he has led major technology projects in his role as a Principal at NWA. Prior to that he spent five years as Design Director for a national residential developer, and over 15 years within the consultancy environment as an Associate Project Manager and Senior Architect.

“By joining our program, organizations are able to get their new data centres, even large-scale ones, up and running within about 3-months time – which is quite fast actually. Besides that, our technologies guarantee high levels of operating efficiencies with significantly reduced operating costs.”

Bill Ryan, TTSP’s Managing Director, said: “Nick’s appointment is part of the growth strategy for TTSP in London; he will also collaborate with the Data Centre team in our Frankfurt office, ttsp hwp seidel.”

Some of TTSP’s main data centre projects include Equinix’s LD6 facility in Slough, London, Virtus Data Centres hub also in Slough and Infinity’s Stockley Park facility, also in the British capital.

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28% of the world’s unready for GDPR 100 days before new legislation strikes in Preparations for GDPR are also proving costly, with businesses investing as much as $5m on compliance with Europe leading the way.

on local businesses, the UK is the most confident nation in Europe, with 74% saying they will be ready by deadline day.

Nearly one in four organisations worldwide are still ill-prepared for the introduction of the new European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Coming into force on May 25, 2018, only 100 days down the line, GDPR will change the rules on own European citizens’ data is handled and stored. Failure to comply with the new legislation could lead to fines of up to €20m, or 4% annual global turnover – whichever is higher.

In comparison, Spanish businesses are a close second to the UK at 73%, dropping to 66% of French respondents. German organisations are the least confident in Europe at 61%.

Preparations for GDPR are also proving costly, with businesses investing as much as $5m on compliance with Europe leading the way.

On average, global organisations have so far spent $1,583,000 on GDPR compliance.

Globally, European businesses have spent the most on average on compliance with Germany leading at $1,969,000, followed by the UK with $1,798,000 with France completing the top three at $1,781,000.

For data centre operators, the new regulation has proved to be a business boost as the need to store data on EU soil sparked a construction frenzy -including hyperscalers – and a ‘race to arms’ for industry partnerships.

USA and Singapore top regional spending in North America and APAC, investing $1,568,000 and $1,521,000 respectively on average.

The GDPR is also clear that as long as a business handles the data of one EU citizen in one of the 28-member states, that data has to remain in the EU, independently of where the business is headquartered.

Small and Medium Business have spent on average $1,263,000 so far on compliance, whereas large businesses have spent up to $5m on compliance.

However, and despite much hype, 28% of companies are still not ready for the regulatory change, according to a 1,000 companies survey by global DDI services provider EfficientIP and commissioned to Coleman Parkes.

Herve Dhelin, SVP Strategy at EfficientIP, said: “As organisations enter the final straight of GDPR compliance with 100 days to go, our research shows they have never been so close to regulatory compliance.

According to the report, regionally, North America is the most confident region in world, with American and Canadian organisations saying they will be prepared at 84% and 75% respectively.

“There is still some work to do, but it is encouraging to see nearly three-quarters of businesses are ready and most organisations see monitoring and analysis of DNS traffic, not firewalls nor endpoints, is the best way of preventing data breaches.”

Despite the on-going Brexit negotiations and uncertainty looming over the enforcement and effectiveness of the EU GDPR regulation

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SSE Enterprise Telecoms expands executive team in bid to double its size by 2023

Google’s 14th Cloud Region opens for business

Network provider wants to expand on upcoming 5G services and widen its data centre reach to existing and new customers.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms has announced three additions to its Business Development and Commercial divisions as part of the company’s bid to double its size in the next five years.

The announcement sees Ian Taylor join as Business Development Director, Pinder Kang join as Sector Director of Network Operators and John Chester join as Commercial Director.

The appointments come as the company’s capital expenditure increased 154% in the last three years, resulting in a significant expansion of SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ network bringing the total number of connected commercial data centres to 80 with ongoing plans to unbundle further exchanges by exploring innovative ways to deliver high capacity connectivity across the UK. As Business Development Director, Ian Taylor will be responsible for driving increased market awareness and sales across the business.

Taylor has experience within the telecoms sector from working with BT and Cable & Wireless, as well as in a variety of senior commercial roles with Siemens.

New Sector Director of Network Operators Kang has previously worked for four of the top six tier one contractors in the UK, including Balfour Beatty, Amey and Galliford Try. He has also worked in Qatar on the infrastructure transformation of the country on projects such as Doha Metro, Lusail Smart City and securing three of the FIFA 2022 Stadium Projects for a Qatar based Architectural Practice. At SEE Enterprise Telecoms, he will be responsible for helping the company grow in the 5G economy.

Lastly, as Commercial Director, Chester has been tasked with ensuring SSE Enterprise Telecoms continues to expand as a networking provider by exploring new routes to expand reach, services and its customer base to continue to grow in a highly competitive market.

He is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant, and joins SSE Enterprise Telecoms following a 20-year senior commercial career at several private equity and PLC businesses spanning infrastructure investments, IT managed services, outsourced services and engineering where he focused on major commercial bids.

Colin Sempill, Managing Director at SSE Enterprise Telecoms, said: “We’re an ambitious company with ambitious growth plans and we need people who will help to accelerate our growth. The next couple of years will be focused on the innovation we bring to deals and partnerships both commercially and from a technology standpoint.

“This will include looking to new ways of collaborating and risk-sharing to build on our already strong network. These latest appointments will drive the streamlining of our processes and provision for our growth, which is key when it comes to delivering first-class customer experience at scale”.

New Netherlands region, europe-west4, joins Belgium, London and Frankfurt in Europe.

Google has brought online its 14th cloud region powered by the company’s data centre in Eemshaven, the Netherlands.

Named Europe-west4, the region counts with three zones designed to let developers build new applications.

The new Netherlands region, europe-west4, joins Belgium, London and Frankfurt in Europe. Dave Stiver, Product Manager, Google Cloud Platform, said: “The Netherlands region is located in our existing data centre in Eemshaven.

“Prior to opening this data centre two years ago, we had procured enough renewable energy on the Dutch grid to ensure consumption would be matched with 100% renewable energy from day one.

“This means that when you use this region to run your compute, store your data and develop your applications, you’re doing so sustainably.

Google to build data centre in Belgium bringing total investment to €800m Third facility to employ up to 1,200 people and be put into work by mid-2019.

Google has unveiled plans to build a third data centre in Belgium for a total capital expenditure of €253m. The building is being erected at the company’s Saint-Ghislain hub in the Hainaut province.

According to local reports, construction work could employ up to 1,200 people and the facility is expected to start powering Google services from mid-2019.

The announcement was made by the company in the presence of Prime Minister Charles Michel and Minister of Digital Agenda Alexander De Croo. The new data centre development also includes the installation of a new solar panel system and a third building for other uses.

The new investment brings Google’s investment in the SaintGhislain campus to €803m, after an initial investment of €250m in 2007 and second investment of €300m in 2013.

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AWS expands in London with Telehouse Data Centres Cloud is becoming mission-critical to organisations and more than 60% of survey respondents are moving IT workloads from on premise environments to the cloud.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has expanding its connectivity reach in the British capital by extending its availability of Direct Connect to Telehouse London Docklands facilities.

Direct Connect has been deployed to provide Telehouse customers with private and dedicated access to Amazon Web Services.

The service is deployed with Telehouse via dedicated 1Gbps or 10Gbps connections from any of the data centres located within the Telehouse London Docklands campus.

Customers in London can now use AWS Direct Connect to transfer data between their IT infrastructure and Amazon Web Services, without using the public internet.

AWS Direct Connect provides access to the full suite of Amazon cloud computing services including; Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS).

recent survey by 451 Research, Cloud is becoming mission-critical to organisations and more than 60% of survey respondents are moving IT workloads from on premise environments to the cloud.

Ken Sakai, Managing Director, KDDI Europe and Telehouse Europe, said: “The deployment of AWS Direct Connect at our London Docklands campus follows the successful launch of the service at Telehouse Paris Voltaire last year.

“Telehouse is committed to providing its customers with secure and reliable solutions for managing their IT workloads, in order to support the growing demands of their business.

As enterprises seek more flexible solutions for managing their data, improving their security and ensuring compliance, the shift towards a hybrid cloud infrastructure continues. According to a

“We are pleased to be able to offer this service to our customers through our network of partners that comprise the Telehouse Cloud Interconnect, located at our campus.”

‘There’s 2 major cloud deployments to be announced shortly,’ says top industry analyst at Datacloud UK Announcements will come following a 18% growth of the data centre market in 2017, above initial forecasts of 13%.

The UK data centre market has resisted Brexit and other challenges, with 2018 posed to bring with it data centre and cloud expansions and consolidation.

According to Steve Wallage, MD of BroadGroup Consulting, the market is expected to be told “shortly” about two large cloud deployments.

Speaking at the first Datacloud UK congress in London, he said: “From what we understand, 2018 has started very well in the UK. There’s two major cloud deployments to be announced shortly.

These cloud guys are very much interested in the UK.” Wallage did, however, not share any more details about the upcoming cloud announcements.

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The news come at a time when the data centre market continues to grow at double digits, contrary to what some adverted following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. “Around 30% of the total European cloud market is in the UK,” Wallage said. “Cloud is increasingly dominating IT deployments.

“Cloud outsourcing was last year 41% percent whilst traditional IT outsourcing fell by 8%.”

He added that London is a key telecoms and interconnection hub where “one of the key drivers, are the hyperscale guys,” Wallage said.

The hyperscalers, together is other data centre players of different levels have propelled the UK market to grow 18% in 2017, much above the 13% value originally estimated in early 2017.

According to Equinix’s Global Interconnection Index, London represents 45% of interconnection installed bandwidth in FLAP markets and for the period between 2016 and 2020 the city is growing at a CAGR of 44%.

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Digiplex planning data centres in Denmark and Finland Move could make the company the largest and most widespread operator in the region ahead of Equinix, Interxion and Digital Realty.

Nordic data centre services provider Digiplex is planning to expand its footprint across the region with new facilities in Denmark and Finland.

Speaking to the Data Economy Magazine, the company’s founder and chairman Byrne Murphy, said sites in the two countries will be part of the company’s offering by 2020. He said: “We have several in Norway, we have a campus in Sweden, and all I can say is, watch this space. We have a lot of plans.

“We’ve been doing this for 17 years, same two shareholders the whole time. We don’t take profits out, we reinvest, reinvest, reinvest. We’re very fortunate to be able to do that, and so far, it’s working.”

The company operates today 322,000 sqf of data centre space across four sites: one in Sweden and three in Norway and is one of the Nordic region’s largest data centre operators already.

The Nordic region has in the last decade seen a boom in data centre developments, including construction from hyperscalers such as Google and Facebook. According to BroadGroup’s “Datacenter Nordics III” report, investment in the data centre sector in the Nordics has reached around $3bn since mid-2016.

Murphy said: “The Nordics are becoming the global data centre hub as we speak. Every one of the largest, including the ten largest Silicon Valley, Seattle or Washington, companies like Amazon and Microsoft, have either already committed a billion to two billion dollars of investment in the region, or are in the process and about to announce it. And three or four of them have now announced their second or their third centre.”

Portugal’s TMT giants expand data centre footprints Millions of Euros are invested to double capacity in a market that is booming following one of the worst financial crisis in living memory.

Jorge Graça [pictured], Board Director and CTO of NOS, said: “The new data centre is the most modern and efficient in Portugal and will increase the company’s capability to support its business activity and to provide service to its business customers, in two areas that require data storage and which are seeing exponential growth: Cloud and Data Analytics services.

Two of Portugal’s largest media and telecommunications brands, NOS and Portugal Telecom (PT), have expanded their data centre footprints to cope with growing demand for digital services.

“In 2018, NOS will be increasing its installed capacity for data storage and related business services by 50%, with more new generation infrastructure to be announced soon.”

Firstly, NOS has opened a new facility in Carnaxide, Lisbon, in an investment aimed at increasing current capacity by 50% by the end of 2018.

The Imopolis II Data Center covers an area of around 1,000 m² and has a floor space of 630 m2 of technical rooms in which computing systems and data storage will be located.

The NOS Data Center complex has been the target of continuous investment by the operator to the tune of around €10m each year.

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Elsewhere, PT, which was acquired by French group Altice in 2015, has unveiled plans to invest and extra €4m in its 800,000 sqf data centre campus in Covilhã, 2h southeast from Oporto.

The infrastructure expansion will create space for the migration of Sapo’s infrastructure. Sapo is PT’s internet services provider and is a search engine and an online news platform with editions across several Portuguese speaking countries including Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and East Timor.

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Google CEO unveils plans for 5 US data centres, Saudi Arabia venture on the cards too

Huawei continues MEA conquest by Landing Data Centres in Algeria, UAE No financials have been disclosed but deals could amount to millions of Dollars, with the Algerian deployment set to become the heart of the Algerian Customs authority.

Chinese multinational Huawei has deployed a modular data centre in Dubai, UAE, and has signed a contract in Algeria to build a new facility as the company continues to expand its reach across the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

In Dubai, Huawei has installed a Tier 3 modular data centre for Dubai Airports at Dubai international (DBX) to boost the organisation’s private cloud environment.

The project, which was inspected by Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai Airports, took more than 400 days to be completed and it’s the first of two planned modular hubs for delivery.

Announcement brings number of new hubs announced in last five days to six, with Saudi Arabia’s debut potentially spoiled by AWS.

Michael Ibbitson, EVP at Dubai Airports, said: “With over 240,000 passengers and 1,100 flights per day, zero downtime and hundreds of internal and external systems to manage, high reliability and resilience are critical requirements for Dubai Airports’ business technology infrastructure.

Google is set to continue to expand its data centre infrastructure with the latest announcement concerning the opening of five new data centres in the US alone.

“This centre boosts our operational efficiency and powers our ability to grow, innovate and enhance the customer experience.”

The company’s CEO Sundar Pichai, said in an earnings call penciled down by Seeking Alpha: “We have offices and data centres across 21 states and we plan to hire thousands of people across the US this year.

“Last year in the US, we grew faster outside the Bay Area than in the Bay Area. To support this growth, we will be making significant investments in offices across nine states including Colorado and Michigan. We will also be building or opening five big new data centres in the US.”

A few thousand kilometres away in Algeria, Huawei has signed a deal with the Public Finance Informatics Agency of the Ministry of Finance to build a data centre for the Algerian Customs.

The project is due competition in six months and capital expenditure has not been disclosed.

The data centre will be used to host the new IT systems that will replace the current Automated Customs Clearance Management Information System (SIGAD), which has been in operation since 1995.

The announcement has come days after Google unveiled plans to increase capital expenditure in Belgium to nearly $1bnwith the construction of a third data centre in the country.

The facility will be used to storage and process the information coming from all the customs’ sites across the country, including, but not limited to, ports, airports, dry ports and border post.

However, the common announcements for more IT infrastructure in North America and Europe might have been outshined by a report from The Wall Street Journal, which suggests Google’s parent company Alphabet is eyeing up a partnership with one of the world’s largest oil companies, Aramco, to aid in the erection of several data centres across the Middle Eastern kingdom.

The two data centres in Algeria and UAE follow on from several other deployments Huawei has secured and delivered in the MEA region, including Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Egypt and many more.

The WSJ cites sources familiar with the matter, but not much more information is given as to how and when the potential partnership could be announced.

If real, the move could see Google enter a new market still to be explored by large North American public cloud providers.

However, even before an official statement is made, Google could already be behind rival AWS, which also according to the WSJ is on the edge of unveiling plans to build no less than three data centres in Saudi Arabia.

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AMERICAS Google has a $6bn data centre and green energy infrastructure masterplan to take over the cloud Company breaks ground in Tennessee and announces investment in Oklahoma as it reveals it employs up to 1,900 directly on its data centre campuses.

Of the $2.5bn CAPEX, $600m alone are to be invested into Google’s campus at the Mid-America Industrial Park near Pryor, Oklahoma, bringing the company’s investment in the state to $2.5bn.

Google has launched a cloud assault on all the world’s top public cloud providers with the announcement of a combined investment of $6bn in data centres and energy infrastructure, following Apple’s $10bn data centre push unveiled last month.

“Today we employ an estimated 1,900 people directly on our data centre campuses. We have created thousands of construction jobs—both for our data centres themselves, and for renewable energy generation.” With that, Pichai took on the opportunity to lay down the cloud giant’s renewable energy purchasing commitments to date which will result in energy infrastructure investments of more than $3.5bn globally, “about two-thirds of that in the United States”.

The plans were unveiled by CEO Sundar Pichai while attending the ground-breaking ceremony of the company’s new data centre in Clarksville/Montgomery County, Tennessee. He said: “The Tennessee data centre is part of a $2.5bn investment we are making to open or expand data centres in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma.

“These data centres are what make Google services run for you or your business (in Tennessee alone, we answer millions of searches a day, and about 18,000 businesses and non-profits use our search and advertising tools).”

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker,said: “The launch of Google’s data centre in Clarksville is great news for Montgomery County. These highquality jobs will benefit families in a real way, and I applaud Google’s mission to improve education and advance workforce development for Americans.”

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Google has also recently announced new data centre builds in Japan and work has started on a potential new data centre campus in Sweden. Pichai said: “Our data centres also have a strong impact on the economies around them. People often discuss “the cloud” as if it is built out of air. But it’s actually made up of buildings, machinery, and people who construct and manage it all.

He added: “In addition to these five data centres, we are investing in new or expanded offices in nine states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

“Having talented people from different places, bringing diverse perspectives and backgrounds to work, is essential to the development of our products. In these locations, there will be jobs for thousands of people in a variety of roles—engineering, operations, sales and more.”

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Los Angeles largest underground data centre targets telecoms Site serves as a gateway into Asia and its owners claim the facility is ready to survive most seismic activity.

The City of Angels’ largest subterranean colocation data centre is targeting Southern Californian telecommunication companies and enterprises as cloud consumption rates accelerate in the region.

The West 7 Center, owned by Rising Realty Partners, a full-service investment platform specialising in creating commercial and industrial properties, is a Tier III facility located at 1200 West Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Rising expects West 7 Center to benefit from such through the provisioning of colocation services and network diversity for OTTs, carriers, IoT providers, healthcare facilities and government organizations.

With 16 carriers currently present at the facility, West 7 Center has approximately 172,000 square feet of colocation hosting space, part of an overall 340,000 sqf of data centre space.

The facility sits across three subterranean levels, and above ground it boasts nine floors of office space.

The data centre halls are supported by the building’s two central plants with a total of 16.9 MW of generator backed power, 3,000 kW of Building UPS power and 9,000 tons of cooling capacity.

Tyson Strutzenberg, Chief Operating Officer of Rising Realty Partners, said: “The West 7 Center adds clear value to telecom operators and enterprises in Los Angeles and across Southern California.

“Not only is it the largest centre downtown, but it serves as a gateway to Asia since it is also on the Wilshire corridor, just a few blocks away from One Wilshire. Because the data centre portion of West 7 Center is entirely subterranean, it is the area’s class-leading facility in terms of seismic safety and disaster recovery.”

According to US-based real estate firm JLL, the US data centre sector will triple its infrastructure by 2020 as a growing number of IoT providers seek data storage for cloud services and Asian telecommunications companies enter into the US market.

Internap buys IaaS giant for $132m Grows data centre footprint to more than 50 facilities across the world and a combined customer portfolio of more than 10,000 businesses.

Peter D. Aquino, President & CEO of INAP, said: “The INAP turnaround strategy includes restoring top-line organic revenue growth while leveraging smart tuck-in acquisitions to accelerate that growth.

IT infrastructure operator Internap (NASDAQ: INAP) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider SingleHop in an all cash transaction worth $132m.

“Today we announce significant progress on both fronts: We are reporting a positive outlook for 4Q 2017 revenue, which is up sequentially, and we are ahead of turnaround expectations. We are also pleased to announce the signing of an agreement to acquire SingleHop and welcome their customers and employees to the INAP family.”

SingleHop is a Chicago-based company with approximately 3,000 customers across 124 countries and data centres in North America and Europe.

The combined business will result in a portfolio of more than 10,000 customers, with services presence especially increased in Chicago, New York City, Phoenix, and Amsterdam.

Internap’s footprint it to grow to more than 51 Tier-3 data centres in 21 metropolitan markets and 90 points-of-presence around the world. The company currently manages one million gross sqf under leaser with 500,000 sqf of data centre space.

Internap will be acquiring SingleHop in an all cash deal for $132m reflecting a purchase multiple of approximately 7x after synergies, based on annualized Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $16m for 3Q 2017 and expected annualized cost synergies of $2m to $3m. INAP expects SingleHop will contribute $45m to $50m in annualised revenue post-closing.

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Zak Boca, co-founder and CEO of SingleHop, said: “These two companies are extremely complementary, and together will offer customers an incredibly robust, modern IT platform, which was backed by investment firm Battery Ventures.

“SingleHop’s innovative approach to IaaS and the delivery of managed services combined with INAP’s global data center and network presence, will give clients a one-stop-shop for their IT needs. This is a strong combination that I’m very excited to be a part of. I look forward to transitioning to become the Chief Marketing Officer of INAP.”

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Edge Computing data centre finds a sweet home in Alabama

Cologix Invests $130m To Triple Ohio Data Centre Business New data centre built to withstand tornados of up to EF-4 and boosts 18MW of computing power.

Cologix has concluded the expansion of its data centre footprint in Columbus with the addition of a new 160,000 sqf, 18MW facility (COL3).

The $130m project is located on the same 8-acre campus as COL1 and COL2, Cologix’s existing data centres.

The data centres offer connectivity to 50+ network service providers (including the Ohio-IX Internet Exchange) and 20+ cloud service providers including access to AWS via the AWS Direct Connect node, providing customers access to AWS US East 2 region.

Facility is only one of four expected to come online by the end of 2018 and operated by the same provider in Southeast USA. Edge data centres and carrier network services provider DC Blox has announced the construction of a $13m edge data centre in Alabama, US. The building will sit on a five-acre campus located near Redstone Arsenal and the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville.

The data centre will amount to 10MW of power provided by Huntsville Utilities and will deliver mission-critical infrastructure for manufacturing, defence related contractors, high-tech, education and healthcare businesses.

COL3 has an EF-4 tornado rating and the entire COL campus is within a K-rated perimeter fence and protected by electronic security and 24×7 guards.

Grant van Rooyen, chief executive officer, Cologix, said: “Columbus has been one of the fastest growing markets with the Cologix platform due to enterprise demand for robust cloud and connectivity choice.

“Our Columbus data centres are able to support and facilitate large cloud and enterprise deployments and we are proud of the role we play within the technology ecosystem in Columbus and look forward to continued investment in the market.”

DC Blox expects the phase one of the multi-tenant facility to be online summer 2018. Huntsville Mayor Thomas M. Battle Jr., said: “Huntsville is one of America’s fastest-growing tech cities, seeing year-over-year tech job growth.

Lucia Cape, senior vice president of economic development for the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber, said: “Technology drives our economy, and data centres enable technology and innovation. The DC BLOX investment will improve our infrastructure and help us attract new companies and jobs to the region.”

“DC BLOX is an excellent addition to our city. We are known for innovation, and having a data centre that’s capable of keeping up with the demands of new technologies and trends puts us even further at the forefront.”

DC Blox is in the midst of a major expansion throughout the Southeast and especially in underserved markets. By the end of 2018, the company will add four additional Edge data centres to its fabric of interconnected facilities.

Jeff Uphues, CEO of DC BLOX, said: “Huntsville, Alabama represents a perfect location for our next data centre and aligns well with our strategy of delivering highly available data centre and network services to Edge markets.

“The design, build and operation of this data center will accommodate clients who must manage and protect confidential unclassified and classified information which are a critical segment of the Huntsville economy.”

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After mega data centres, Switch’s Rob Roy launches US’s single largest solar project

‘The definition of data centre is changing dramatically,’ Compass CEO warns as company buys Edge Computing Players No company is indifferent to the arrival of edge computing into the market and most are trying to bulk up on offerings before rivals do.

Edge computing is posed to disrupt how the data centre ecosystem operates and according to Compass Datacenters CEO’s Chris Crosby, even the definition of a data centre is set to “dramatically change”.

“This is an exciting time for the data centre industry because the definition of a data centre is changing so dramatically,” he said.

Project is announced with the approval from Greenpeace and the backing from Capital Dynamics and Switch as an anchor client.

Rob Roy, one of the data centre industry’s most famous names due to the construction of multi billion Dollar hosting campuses, has announced a new mega project this time in the renewable energy arena. Named Gigawatt 1, the “single largest solar project portfolio in the United States” will be built in Northern and Southern Nevada.

The project will produce among the lowest priced solar power in the world and generate enough clean energy to power nearly one million homes. The Gigawatt 1 concept comes from an initiative called Gigawatt Nevada, first proposed by Roy three years ago.

The assets will be owned and developed by Capital Dynamics, the second largest owner of solar projects in the country.

Gigawatt 1 anchor tenants will include Switch, and several of the Switch CORE clients that currently partner with Switch for data centre and telecommunication services.

In addition, multiple private and public-sector access customers within Nevada and outside the state are already in negotiations to join the project. Roy said: “The foundation of Gigawatt Nevada is that Nevada should harness the sun the same way Alaska harnesses its oil to significantly benefit all Nevadans.

“Nevada enjoys the best solar window in the nation and so we Nevadans should not only be using solar for ourselves, but exporting it throughout the Western U.S. to create new jobs, tax revenue, economic diversification, and raise energy independence.”

“It wasn’t that long ago that the only model for a corporate data centre was a monolithic, end-user-built structure that was inflexible, capital-intensive and inefficient in a hundred ways. Data centres have evolved significantly since then and need to be much closer to end users.”

Crosby’s comments are directed at the arrival of edge computing in the data centre space, which the company has invested heavily in.

Compass Datacenters has recently acquired two companies which Compass claims “make it the first and only provider in the data centre industry that can deliver dedicated mission critical facilities from the core to the edge-all with a common management and service platform”.

The acquired companies include EdgePoint Systems, which delivers, installs, monitors and maintains fully-integrated edge data centres, and BitBox USA, a facility management platform and solutions integrator for the edge.

Crosby said: “These are strategic investments for Compass that enable us to offer a broader range of mission critical solutions to customers to match their specific needs from the core of their IT infrastructure all the way out to the extreme edge, no matter how a customer defines the edge and where it resides.

“Beyond the strategic importance of these acquisitions and how the technology benefits our customers, there is also tremendous value in bringing Sharif Fotouh, founder of EdgePoint, and Jon Trout, founder of BitBox, to Compass as members of our management team.”

Benoit Allehaut, Director at Capital Dynamics, said: “After hearing Rob Roy’s vision to build gigawatts of solar in Nevada, this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass. We see a natural partnership to transform not just Nevada, but the entire Western electric grid.”

Also commenting, Greenpeace’s Gary Cook, Senior IT Sector Analyst and Energy Campaigner, said that Gigawatt 1 is proof of what is possible when companies work together to build renewable energy projects. He said: “Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that we must move to renewable energy as rapidly as possible, but many monopoly utilities continue to hold us back from making this transition.

“Gigawatt 1 shows that when Switch and other leading companies don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, they can work together and kick open the door to large scale sources of renewable energy that are better for the planet, and better for the economy in Nevada.”

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Cloud economy to boost US GDP by $2tr Cloud is also set to close the productivity gap between rapid technology adopters and those who lagged in investing in new IT systems.

The rapid expanding cloud economy in the US is projected to deliver a cumulative $2tr economic boost to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2028.

The figure, based on 2016’s Dollar value, represents the value cloud will deliver by enabling accessibility to technologies such as blockchain, AI, cognitive computing, machine learning, and intelligent automation to a wider range of businesses and consumers.

The findings were published in a report titled “Intelligent Finance: How CFOs Can Lead the Coming Productivity Boom”, and authored by Dr. Michael Mandel, senior fellow at the Mack Institute of Innovation Management at the Wharton School and commissioned by Oracle.

According to the research, which defines cloud as Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS), there is a widening productivity divide between the organisations and industries that have invested in software technologies and those that haven’t.

However, the report predicts cloud services will close the productivity gap as organisations and industries that have traditionally lagged in technology adoption begin to take advantage of more cost effective and accessible cloud-based solutions.

The report also highlights several use cases in which companies have downsized or divested their data centre infrastructure consequently moving into cloud based environments.

For example, the study looks at OneConnect Bank, which has shifted to the cloud eliminating the need to build and maintain

a data centre, “ultimately ramping up scalability and allowing ConnectOne Bank to continue operating a lean IT team as its business continues to grow”.

Other examples include Shawnee, which is consolidating two on-campus data centres into one and gradually reducing reliance on a third offsite data centre used for backup, and FairfieldNodal, which has stopped paying for data centre services and moved to the cloud.

Dr Mandel said: “The cloud era will give low-productivity organisations and industries access to the same technology and best practices that companies in high-productivity industries benefit from.

“By standardising and automating routine tasks, the lower producers will increase efficiency and reduce the cost of many processes, which will help them self-fund further investments in technology, develop new capabilities, and redeploy and hire resources for higher-level and better-paid tasks.”

The USA’s GDP amounted to $19.4tr in 2017, according estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This represents an increase from 2016’s $18.6tr. For 2018, the IMF forecasts the US economy to grow to a GDP of $20.2tr.

AWS eyes 600,000 sqf data centre in Virginia Another mega project to add to a region in the US where all cloud and data centre operators want to be: Washington DC.

centre project projected on a 44-acre piece of land, an average size for hyperscaler developments.

The world’s largest public cloud provider is as busy to find a new home for its second US headquarters as it is to find more data centre infrastructure opportunities.

The spot is just 25 miles away from the US capital of Washington DC and sits close by to the Dulles International Airport. However, the project is yet to be approved, or not, by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and would involve the rezoning of three vacant parcels owned by Chantilly Crushed Stone Inc.

And according to reports from the Washington Business Journal, the next big stopover for AWS could be the Loudoun County, in Virginia. The company is reportedly behind a 590,000 sqf data

The project was put through to the Board by Oppidan Investment Co., a property firm whose AWS is also a client. A decision is expected soon.

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Investment titans Unite to invest $2bn in edge data centres

CoreSite to build $210m data centre in downtown Chicago

New formed real estate entity to build across six markets, with first campuses to deliver between 100MW to 200MW. A group of three investment firms have come together to launch EdgeCore Internet Real Estate, LLC, in what has become one of the largest edge computing investments to date.

Together, Mount Elbert Capital Partners, GIC and OPTrust, will use EdgeCore as an investment vehicle to develop, acquire, and operate data centres across North America.

EdgeCore, whose lead anchor investor will be GIC, will initially be capitalised with over $800m of equity targeted to support approximately $2bn in data centre development and investment.

The initial investments will take place across six markets. The company has already acquired land in Mesa, Arizona, and prior to the end of this quarter EdgeCore plans to close upon existing agreements to acquire land in Dallas and Reno.

Investors plan to commence construction on each campus immediately upon acquisition delivering between 100 MW and 200 MW of critical power per site. The first building is expected to be concluded in late 2018.

Additionally, in the second quarter of this year the company intends to pursue acquiring land in three complementary Tier I markets, with a view toward commencing construction on each campus within the year.

Tom Ray, Chairman and CEO of EdgeCore Internet Real Estate and Mount Elbert, said: “We are pleased and honoured to join forces with GIC and OPTrust, which we view as two of the world’s most capable and sophisticated investors.

“We are excited to execute upon our shared vision of creating a scalable North American data centre platform and we look forward to expanding with GIC and OPTrust as we work to grow EdgeCore Internet Real Estate beyond our initial roll out.”

Mount Elbert Capital Partners is a private investment company and SEC-registered Investment Advisor headquartered in Denver, Colorado making and managing investments in real assets with an aggregate value exceeding $10bn across the US, Europe, and Asia, with more than $5.0bn in data centre real estate and related infrastructure.

OPTrust is a fully funded plan with net assets of $19bn and invests and manages one of Canada’s largest pension funds and administers the OPSEU Pension Plan.

GIC is a global investment firm with well over $100bn in assets under management.

Lee Kok Sun, Chief Investment Officer, GIC Real Estate, said: “GIC is pleased to partner with Mount Elbert and OPTrust in this venture. As a long-term value investor, we believe the secular growth in data consumption and public cloud usage will generate attractive returns in the data centre sector.”

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Facility expected to break ground before the end of 2018 or by the beginning of 2019 depending on ongoing permits negotiations.

CoreSite Realty Corporation has announced that it has acquired a two-acre land parcel in downtown Chicago, Illinois, on which it expects to build CH2, a greenfield development of a 175,000-sqf data centre.

The facility is projected to support 18MW of power capacity and construction works are expected to break ground by the end of the year or by the beginning of 2019, with timing dependent upon the receipt of necessary entitlements and permits, the company has clarified.

CoreSite expects to construct the building in three phases, consisting of 6MW of capacity per phase, with a total estimated cost of $190m to $210m at full build-out.

CH2 will be located one mile from the company’s existing CH1 facility and network node, and CoreSite plans to connect the two sites via dark fiber.

The data centre will be targeted at customers in the financial sector, healthcare, and media companies.

The site will also include access to cloud on-ramps such as AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, and Google Cloud Platform, and access to on-demand cloud services through the CoreSite Open Cloud Exchange.

Paul Szurek, Chief Executive Officer at CoreSite, said: “We are pleased to have acquired land in downtown Chicago, providing us with much-needed capacity to serve new and expansion requirements of current and prospective customers in the fifth largest multi-tenant data centre market in North America.

“We expect CH2 to enhance our ability to compete effectively in the Chicago market for customer requirements seeking a high performance, cloud-enabled and scalable, higher density colocation solution.”

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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 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.”

Equinix tops $4.4bn in revenues, announces $1.3bn expansion and M&A However, company’s stock dropped sharply in the first hours of trading in New York with shares depreciating nearly 7.5% to the lowest value since April 2017. But Equinix was not alone.

(DA1, DA2, DA3 and DA6), which combined amount to 1.6 million grosssquare-foot and support approximately 3,500 built out cabinets.

Equinix has reported its full year 2017 results with the company delivering a 21% year-on-year growth as revenues topped $4.368m and new expansion projects were today added amounting to a capital expenditure of $1.3bn.

The revenues were largely boosted by the operator’s $3.6bn acquisition of Verizon’s 29 data centres ($359m of the revenue total) and the $259m M&A of Itconic’s business in Portugal and Spain, as well as the acquisition of a facility in Istanbul, Turkey. The later two contributed $17m to the overall revenue.

Peter Van Camp, Executive Chairman and Interim CEO and President of Equinix, said: “As we approach our 20th anniversary and reflect on what we’ve built, we believe our platform will become even more important for our customers in the years to come. We have a clear vision of our strategy and the opportunities ahead, and we are looking forward to another successful year.”

In addition to announcing its FY results, Equinix has also said it will acquire data centre operator Infomart Dallas, including its operations and tenants, from ASB Real Estate Investments, in an $800 million debt and cash transaction. The Infomart is one of the largest interconnection hubs in the US and is currently home to four of eight Equinix Dallas International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres

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The acquisition will also secure the ability to further expand in the Dallas market with future development. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2018, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The Infomart building generated approximately $50 million of revenues in 2017, of which approximately $20 million was attributed to rent and maintenance recoveries from Equinix.

Additionally, the company has announced new several expansions on top of 30 projects currently under way, half of which in the EMEA region. New expansions are to be made in the Culpeper, Houston, London, Paris, São Paulo, Silicon Valley, Sofia and Washington, D.C. metros totalling more than $500m of capital expenditures.

Operating income was 31% up compared to 2016 at $809m and adjusted EBITDA reached $2,052m. For 2018, the company has forecasted revenues of more than $5bn, representing an increase of at least 15% compared to 2017.

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As a result of this transaction, Equinix will increase the number of its owned assets by four, increasing recurring revenue from owned assets to more than 45%.

However, despite the positive financial results and the Infomart acquisition Equinix’s shares were this morning in New York’s NASDAQ trading on -7.48% (10:30am EST) to a price of $403.82 per share after yesterday’s closure of $435.83. The last time Equinix’s shares traded at less than $404 was on April 21, 2017, when the share price was $401.84.

However, Equinix was not alone in this morning’s drops. Some of the other large public traded data centre companies in the US also experienced slumps in their stock as US financial markets continue volatile to inflation.

Digital Realty Trust was down 1.7% to a stock price of $103.6 per share after closing on $105.30. CoreSire Realty Corp was down 2.87% from an opening on $97.82 to $95.02 per share. CyrusOne (NASDAQ:CONE) was down 1.90% to $51.74 per share, when it opened at $52.74.

Interxion Holding also saw its shares drop 1.77% from $59.95 at yesterday’s closing to $58.89 at the time of publishing.

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ASIA PACIFIC Apple to open $1bn Chinese data centre in 2020 The iPhone maker announced it would build the IT facility in July 2017 as the company tries to expand its services in China.

Apple is to cut the ribbon of its first Chinese data centre in 2020 with construction works expected to start this year.

The data centre is to be built in two phases and was announced in response to new Chinese data laws which demand citizens’ data to be hosted on Chinese soil.

In January, it was revealed that Apple would start migrating its Chinese iCloud customers to local operator GCBD by February 28.

According to local reports, the data centre will sit on a 1,000 acres piece of land and will host all Chinese iCloud users data.

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Google to build more cloud data centres in Japan, could Sweden be next?

Alibaba wants to stop olympic games hosts from building data centres Chinese giant is sending up to 300 staff to Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics in South Korea to evaluate IT usage and its effectiveness in current form.

Every four years, dozens of nations across the world gather together in one place to compete for the ultimate sport’s prize: a gold medal in the Olympic Games.

However, what is not deserving a golden medal are the current IT strategies in practice by games organisers, according to Chinese cloud operator Alibaba.

In eight days, the American internet giant has announced the construction of nine facilities with many more potentially on the cards.

Google has announced the construction of three data centres in Osaka, Japan, brining the total number of facilities announced since February 1, 2018, to nine. The fierce expansion comes as the company’s cloud services continue to experience strong demand across the world, forcing the addition of the sites in Osaka as well as in Belgium and in the US, where five buildings will be erected.

Additionally, reports out this month suggested Google’s parent company Alphabet to be in close conversations with Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco to aid in the construction of several data centres in the kingdom. And in Sweden, work has begun to clear 40 acres of the 190-acre piece of land Google acquired in October 2017 in Avesta.

In a statement, the local municipality explained: “As part of preparing the Horndal Industrial Zone for development there will be several noticeable activities occurring on or around the zone over the next 6-18 months, this includes logging and felling of trees on a portion of the site, as well as infrastructure works for the connection of utilities.

“This does not mean that a decision to begin development of the site has been taken, but the works are the next step in enabling that decision to be made.” Google was not immediately available for comment.

Back in Japan, the new Osaka infrastructures will become Google’s second cloud region in the country and the seventh in APAC, with Hong Kong set to open soon as its sixth region. The Osaka investment is expected to be finalised and operation in 2019 “and it will make it easier for Japanese companies to build highly available, performant applications,” said Shinichi Abe, Managing Director, Google Cloud Japan, in a blog post.

In each edition, the hosting city has to usually build localised data centre facilities to help cope with the surge in traffic that comes with hosting the Games.

From heavy media streams to thousands of athletes and visitors, the Olympic Games are a data-hungry event that as it becomes more technologically advanced, the more IT power it will need.

However, for Alibaba, the solution is not in building data centres for every edition, but to host and use cloud computing services.

The company, which is signed up as an Olympic sponsor up until 2028, has vowed to upgrade the technology used during the Winter Olympic Games in order to cut down resources waste.

The e-commerce mammoth and cloud provider will start by studying the IT architectures and systems used during the Pyeongchang Games due to take place from February 9 to 25 in Pyeongchang County, South Korea.

Speaking during an interview, Alibaba’s CMO Chris Tung, said: “Pyeongchang will be a very important learning opportunity for our team to see how things are working and what’s missing.”

Tung said the company “especially wants to end the inefficient practice of building from scratch local data centres and IT services for each Olympic Games”.

He said: “It will be great if a lot of the back-end systems from hosting a Games can be hosted on the cloud and can be reused from Games to Games to enhance the cost efficiency.”

However, Alibaba’s vision of data centreless Games is already being challenged by competing sponsors such as French company Atos SE, which says on its website that all critical IT systems for the upcoming Winter Olympics are already hosted in the cloud.

Alibaba will nonetheless send up to 300 employees from different verticals to the Pyeongchang Games to carry out assessments on the effective usage of IT capabilities.

He continued: “Osaka is a large port city and a leading commercial centre, and will be our seventh region in Asia Pacific, joining our future region in Hong Kong, and existing regions in Mumbai, Sydney, Singapore, Taiwan and Tokyo. Overall, the Osaka region brings the total number of existing and announced GCP regions around the world to 19—with more to come!

“With the Osaka region customers will benefit from lower latency for their cloud-based workloads and data. The region is also designed for high availability, launching with three zones to protect against service disruptions.”

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Singaporean national wealth fund weighs up acquisition of $1.4bn NextDC Data Centres NextDC shares were today up 3.33% in the Australian stock exchange in a time when data centre M&As break all records.

Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean state investor, is considering the acquisition of Australian data centre services provider NextDC, according to sources.

The news, first reported by The Australian, come at a time when data centre M&As reached a total amount of $55bn globally between 2012 and 2018.

The value of the potential transaction between Temasek Holdings and NextDC has not been disclosed.

NextDC’s stock closed on a 3.33% high today in the Australian stock exchange with shares trading at A$6.2. The company has currently a market capitalisation of A$1.73bn ($1.36bn as of time of publishing).

In its latest full year (FY) report for 2017, NextDC posted revenues of A$123.6m, up 33% from FY 2016. Its EDITDA was 77% up, to A$49m.

The company’s capital investment in 2017 amounted to A$159m with cash and term deposits topping A$368.3m.

Temasek Holdings has an asset portfolio worth more than S$275bn with subsidiaries including Singapore Airlines, Singtel, MediaCorp, Vertex Venture Holdings, ST Telemedia and others.

Other reports suggest that US private equity firm Blackstone is also interested in the acquisition of NextDC’s business as well as Asia Pacific Data Centre Group, another Australian data centre operator which was spun out of NextDC years ago.

Its portfolio of data centres includes eight facilities in across Australia’s main cities including Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

In total, the sites have a total of square footage of 320,000 sqf and a total power of 126.1MW, of which 52MW are planned to be brought online in 2018 and 30MW in Q1 2019.

For the FY 2018, the operator expects revenues to increase between 18% and 25% compared to FY 2017, topping A$146m to A$154m, and an underlying EBITDA in the range of A$56m and A$61m, up 14% to 25% compared to FY 2017.

Apple to double down on data centre CAPEX in China Comes after the Cupertino giant’s $1bn investment on a different facility in Guizhou is now known to be opening in 2020.

Apple is reportedly planning to build a second data centre infrastructure in China due to become operational by 2020, government sources have revealed.

According to a report from news agency Xinhua, citing the said sources, the data centre is to be located at Ulanqab City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

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Data Economy has contacted Apple this morning requesting more information about the project. The company was not immediately available to share more details or issue an official confirmation of the investment. More details about the project are currently unknown.

Apple is underway with its first Chinese data centre set to also open in 2020 and expected to hit $1bn in CAPEX. Based in the southern province of Guizhou, the data centre is projected to be powered using 100% renewable energy sources, something that Apple could also be planning for the Ulanqab City site.

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EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

13th March 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Energy Smart Stockholm, Sweden VISIT WEBSITE

23rd May 2018 DatacenterDynamics Espana Madrid, Spain VISIT WEBSITE

12th –14th June 2018 Datacloud Europe Monaco

12th June 2018 Datacloud Awards 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.

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20th June 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Africa Johannesburg, South Africa

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.

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28th September 2018 Datacloud Africa Leadership Forum Marrakech

13th September 2018 Datacloud Ireland Dublin

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ISSUE 169

23

MARCH 2018

AMERICAS 25th April 2018 Datacenter Dynamics Argentina Buenos Aires, Argentina VISIT WEBSITE

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

1st –2nd May 2018

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

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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EVENTS

DATASOURCE

ISSUE 169

24

MARCH 2018

ASIA PACIFIC 5th April 2018 DatacenterDynamics Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia VISIT WEBSITE

26th April 2018 DatacenterDynamics Focus On Hyderabad, India

22nd March 2018

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7th June 2018 DatacenterDynamics Enterprise Shanghai Shanghai, China VISIT WEBSITE

Datacloud Asia 2018 Singapore Pan-regional forum for cloud and data centre leadership.

Meet with leaders, investors and experts for insights and potential business opportunities.

Join the leading deal making event for the Asia region, attended by executives from Asia and internationally, the event has acquired a leading reputation as a place to meet operating companies, service providers, network owners, enterprises including hyperscales, expert consultancies and solutions firms.

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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.