Business

Students explore career opportunities in data centre industry

As part of its campaign to address the ongoing skills shortage in the digital infrastructure industry, HireHigher and Baker Dearing Educational Trust brought together 60 students from East London to help them understand what careers and opportunities the data centre industry has to offer. This initiative took place at the industry’s largest digital infrastructure event, Data Centre World, which was co-located within the Tech Show London and involved the students participating in employer engagement tasks around the conference to find out as much as they could about the industry. Working with Baker Dearing, which supports University Technical Colleges (UTCs) to deliver a high-quality, industry-focused curriculum to students, the sixth formers from the London Design and Engineering UTC joined in to enjoy their very first taste of life in the data centre industry. Adelle Desouza, Founder of HireHigher, comments, “The event was a roaring success. We created a curated route complete with trivia questions for each team of students to complete. Watching the students battle it out in their teams saw them not only answering the questions posed, but having their interest peaked - with so many giving extensive answers. Visiting select exhibitors, students were empowered to engage with stands and sponsors across the show floor. “Led by current young professionals, our rising stars and industry all-stars, the groups really got stuck in and everyone seemed to get a lot out of the day. I would like to thank the conference organisers, and our headline sponsors Portman Partners and OneEighty, alongside The Data Centre Alliance, EnerSys, Sudlows, KAO Data and LeGrand for making the event possible and inspiring so many students with the work we do in the data centre industry.” Director of Education and Innovation for the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, Kate Ambrosi, comments, "We appreciate the support that HireHigher has provided in expanding UTC students' knowledge of the data centre sector. Young people in UTCs regularly engage with employers in highly-specialised sectors, so Data Centre World was a fantastic opportunity to continue that work on a much larger scale. London Design and Engineering UTC's visit to Data Centre World helped focus students' energies and ought to strengthen the pipeline of talented young people from across the UTC network who are entering digital industries."

The data centre boom will continue to accelerate

The data centre market, which has been expanding for a long time, has continued to gather pace over the past five years and has become a veritable boom. Cloud providers such as AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft, Google and Oracle are the main drivers of the ever-increasing demand. As a result, data centres have now become an attractive and high-performance investment alternative to traditional commercial real estate. Against the backdrop of advancing digitalisation in all areas of life and the economy, not least in what is perhaps the most important growth market of artificial intelligence (AI), the demand for data centres will continue to increase in the coming years. At the same time, investor interest will also grow noticeably, so there is much to suggest that data centres will have the greatest growth potential of all asset classes in terms of capital values over the next one to two years. As early as 2000, BNP Paribas Real Estate recognised the long-term opportunities and prospects of this market and established a separate division that focuses exclusively on the data centre asset class, as well as operators, end users and investors. Even during the dotcom boom up to 2005, BNP Paribas Real Estate brokered numerous transactions through the sale of properties in Europe. Over the past 10 years, the Data Center Solutions team has not only confirmed the market leadership it has built up over many years in Germany but has also significantly expanded it. Since 2018, the division, which is led by Arno Petzold in Germany and comprises seven consultants across the country, has advised on a total of 26 sales of green and brownfield sites to data centre developers and operators in Frankfurt and Berlin with a total area of around 875,000m² and a transaction volume of over €860 million. In the two most important German markets for data centres, Frankfurt and Berlin, BNP Paribas Real Estate has been involved in almost all brokered transactions in this market segment. In the Frankfurt market area alone, the property consultant has advised on and brokered 21 transactions in the past five years. These transactions played a key role in Frankfurt-Sossenheim becoming the new hotspot of the data centre market; All the data centre project sites developed there for CyrusOne (formerly Zenium), Digital Realty Trust and Colt were brokered by the Data Center Solutions team. Other landmark transactions included the two mandates of BEOS AG for the sale of the Osthafen IT and business park on Frankfurt's Ratswegkreisel and the implementation of a structured bidding process for the partial sale of a data centre project site in the FRANKFURT WESTSIDE development area for a project company of BEOS and Swiss Life Asset Managers in FrankfurtGriesheim. BNP Paribas Real Estate also brokered the site of the former Coca-Cola bottling plant in Liederbach am Taunus near Frankfurt (which Coca-Cola closed last summer after more than 50 years) to Stack Infrastructure. Four data centre construction phases with a planned capacity of 80 MVA are being built on an area of around 70,000m². The Data Center Solutions team is currently working on over a dozen other projects throughout Germany. The challenge is to find suitable plots of land for the customers, among other things, with the ability to obtain planning permission, the availability of electricity or the utilisation of waste heat. The specialists at BNP Paribas Real Estate can draw on many years of experience and their corresponding, highly complex knowledge of the market.

Vertiv invests in manufacturing facility in Northern Ireland

Vertiv has announced that it is making a significant investment in a manufacturing facility in Campsie, Derry / Londonderry, creating approximately 200 skilled jobs and contributing to the Northern Ireland economy. Supported by Invest Northern Ireland, its investment will further strengthen Northern Ireland’s highly developed and advanced manufacturing and engineering sector. Karsten Winther, President of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Vertiv, says, “We are delighted to be making this investment, which will support our EMEA and global business growth and help us to meet strong market demand for our infrastructure solutions, mainly driven by digitalisation and AI adoption. Vertiv’s focus is on solving the most important challenges facing today’s data centres, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions. This new investment will support our goal.”  Philip O’Doherty, Managing Director for the E+I business at Vertiv, adds, “Derry was not the only location we considered for this facility, but it came out on top when we realised the quality of the local workforce, the cost-competitive business environment and the ease with which we can establish links and work with colleges and universities to support our research and development plans. The support from Invest NI was also crucial to our decision to choose Northern Ireland.”  The Department for the Economy’s Assured Skills Academies will assist in filling 72 of the jobs by providing training across skills areas in electrical and mechanical installation. Vertiv is actively recruiting for vacancies in engineering and other roles. The company has a robust diversity and inclusion strategy and is welcoming and encouraging women to apply for positions, with the goal of attracting more women into STEM careers at Vertiv. It will also use this opportunity to build on its already successful apprenticeship programme to attract graduates and apprentices into full-time skilled roles.

Pulsant invests £3m in expansion at Rotherham data centre

Pulsant has announced that the new investment will see an expansion of its Rotherham data centre capacity by 116% to 380kW. The new power will accommodate growing regional demand for low latency, high performance, scalable network infrastructure.  At more than 2000SQM, the Rotherham site will see total IT space increase by 30% to support a growing technology sector demand in the Yorkshire and Humber region with edge colocation, hyperscale cloud access, and distributed compute services.  As on-site capacity increases, its commitment to driving sustainable operations across its national network continues with the Rotherham site the first to pilot non-palm derived HVO biofuel to replace fossil diesel in its standby power generators. Pulsant is also eliminating the use of FM200 fire suppressant gas and moving to LED sensor lighting to reduce electricity use across the centre. Ben Cranham, Chief Operating Officer at Pulsant, comments, “Our focus on delivering regional access to edge infrastructure is seeing us invest significantly to meet the growing demand for access to low latency, high performance, compute, storage and connectivity services across the Yorkshire and Humber region.”  Pulsant’s latest quarterly survey of UK IT and business decision maker revealed that that business decision makers are three times more likely than their IT counterparts to question cloud-only strategies. With business leaders questioning increasing hyperscale cloud costs and vendor exclusivity, IT leaders will need to explore hybrid alternatives including colocation and private cloud infrastructure. “Our platformEDGE infrastructure, in Rotherham and across the UK, is supporting the increasing number of business decision makers challenging cloud only strategies on cost and vendor lock-in grounds and their IT counterparts who see the limitations in the hyperscale model,” adds Ben. “The Rotherham data centre investment cements Pulsant’s domain expertise in the edge infrastructure market, adding further capacity to its platformEDGE infrastructure to reach businesses across the UK.”

CtrlS Datacenters lays out $2bn investment plan

CtrlS Datacenters has announced its new investment plan of $2bn over the next six years. The company has identified three key areas of focus as it looks to scale its operations, reaffirm its commitment to the region, and further establish its leadership position: Add 350MW data centres: With the massive surge in adoption of AI applications and cloud technologies, the demand for AI and cloud ready data centres is on the rise. The company will invest in key technologies and strategies and overall infrastructure design in its new hyperscale data centres. These will include: liquid cooling (direct-to-chip or immersion cooling), AI HVAC, AI optimised rack layout, high-efficiency power infrastructure, and will provide a plug-n-play environment for emerging technology service providers to grow their IT footprint seamlessly. The investment plan involves the addition of approximately 350MW capacity across new and existing hyperscale and edge data centres in both India and select Southeast Asian markets. Achieve net zero and carbon neutrality by 2030: The company is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2030. It is investing in 153MWp solar projects across three markets, that will generate 2,50,000MWh energy annually. This includes a 145MWp solar project in Maharashtra that will be fully owned and operated by the company. By 2025, it plans to invest in additional 300MWp projects. It also plans to achieve its net zero goals through a multi-pronged strategy, going beyond renewable energy. The company will further enhance its water conservation measures by deploying more advanced water recycling technologies in line with its goal of 100% usage of recycled water at all of its data centres. Double headcount by 2029: The company is strengthening the organisation by constantly hiring and skilling. It has brought onboard several industry veterans from global MNCs to strengthen its leadership team and drive its growth. The global leadership team received a boost with Royce Thomas (from Equinix) joining as President and Chief Business Officer; Ashish Ahuja (from Google) joining as Chief Technology Officer; Vipin Jain (from AWS) joining as President of Data Centre Operations; and Mohit Pande (from Jefferies) joining as Chief Financial Officer. 

Infratil and L&G Capital increase investment in Kao Data

Kao Data has announced that Infratil and Legal & General Capital have increased their equity stakes in Kao Data. Infratil will now hold a majority stake of 53%, Legal & General Capital will hold 32%, and Goldacre NOÉ Group, Kao Data’s founding investors, will hold 15%. Since 2021, Infratil and Legal & General Capital have together invested in Kao Data, growing the company from a single site data centre developer/operator, to a multi-site platform. The new shareholdings will provide streamlined ownership and additional funding for its further growth, accelerating its plans to scale across the UK and underpinning its mission to provide customers across the region with world-class and sustainable, high performance data centre infrastructure. "Technologies such as GPU-powered Generative AI and high-performance computing are driving transformative change across the sector, and it’s vital we continue to build out the Kao Data platform to the highest standards of performance, energy efficiency and sustainability, while retaining our position as one of the world’s leading data centre providers for advanced computing,” says Spencer Lamb, Chief Commercial Officer, Kao Data. “With our new capital structure and the ongoing support of our large, institutional investors, we believe Kao Data is perfectly placed to underpin the next wave of hyperscale and artificial intelligence innovation, during a time of exponential growth in digital infrastructure.”

Immuta and Data Reply join forces to steer data-driven excellence 

Immuta has announced a strategic partnership to help German organisations create modern data environments with the confidence of automated and secure data access controls.  Following the expansion, Immuta’s collaboration with Data Reply’s expertise and consultation will empower organisations to innovate and maximise the value of data with secure data protection at scale.   To accelerate data-driven decision-making, organisations require trusted advice on enhancing data security, ensuring compliance, optimising data management costs, and improving data architecture agility. Data Reply's data and AI expertise is now coupled with Immuta’s data security platform.  The partnership brings together two vital aspects for organisations seeking data-driven excellence:  Data governance: Immuta brings its expertise in providing unrivalled cloud data access control, allowing organisations to automate access control for any data, across any cloud service, and all compute infrastructure.  Data and AI system integrator: Data Reply stands as a dependable partner, empowering customers to unleash the full potential of their data assets through strategic data initiatives and advanced solutions.  The partnership will focus on the following key areas:  Data governance: Immuta’s platform will help German organisations to implement and enforce data governance policies. This will help to ensure that only authorised users have access to sensitive data, and that data is used in a compliant manner.  Compliance: It will help them to comply with data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This will help to protect the privacy of individuals and organisations, and to avoid costly fines.  Agility: It will also help make their data architecture more agile. This will make it easier to change data access permissions, and to respond more quickly to changing business needs. 

KKR to acquire stakes in Singtel’s regional data centre business

Singtel and KKR have reached a definitive agreement, under which a fund managed by KKR will commit up to S$1.1bn for a 20% stake in Singtel’s regional data centre business. This investment puts the enterprise value of Singtel’s overall regional data centre business at S$5.5bn. KKR will have the option to increase its stake to 25% by 2027 at the pre-agreed valuation. The collaboration is a first between Singtel and KKR, and enables Singtel to tap on KKR’s expertise investing in data centres and critical telecommunication infrastructure globally in addition to capital. The proceeds from this transaction will be used to accelerate the expansion of the regional data centre business across ASEAN markets, including Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, while exploring markets like Malaysia and others. This will widen the business’ strategic choices, giving a variety of options to monetise in the future. Southeast Asia’s data centre market is expected to grow by 17% over the next five years compared to 12% for the rest of the world, with US$9bn to US$13bn in investments projected to flow into the region. While data centre capacity is poised to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 19% from 2021 to 2026, demand is expected to outpace supply driven by increased data consumption, enterprises transitioning to the cloud and the rapid rise of AI in the region. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand could see the biggest increase in capacity with Johor, in particular, benefiting from spill-over demand from Singapore due to the island state’s supply constraints. The growing need to handle high performance computing tasks, such as generative AI, will also spur a significant growth in GPU-powered data centres in the years to come. Click here for more latest news.

Quantum announces ActiveScale Cold Storage bundles

Quantum has announced new pre-configured bundles to make it even easier to purchase and deploy Quantum ActiveScale Cold Storage, an S3-enabled object storage solution architected for both active and cold data sets, that reduce cold storage costs by up to 60%.  With the massive amount of data that customers need to retain for business and compliance purposes, they are using both public and private cloud resources to store and manage it, driven by their budget, the frequency with which they need to access the data, and their data protection requirements. With ActiveScale, customers can build their own cloud storage resource to control costs and ensure fast, easy access to their data for compliance, analysis, and to gather insights to drive business forward.  As a leading 'outperformer' in the latest GigaOm Object Storage: Enterprise Radar Report, ActiveScale combines advanced object store software with hyperscale tape technology to provide massively scalable, highly durable, and extremely low-cost storage for archiving cold data, enabling organisations to maintain control of their most valuable data assets and unlock value in cold data over years and decades without unpredictable and expensive access fees.  Whether customers are developing solutions for life and Earth sciences, media production, government programs, web services, IoT infrastructure, or video surveillance, ActiveScale is ideal for unstructured data management, data analytics and AI workloads, active archiving, and long-term retention and protection of massive datasets.   To simplify purchasing, ActiveScale Cold Storage is now available in pre-configured bundles, complete with all the components that customers need to easily deploy the solution. The bundles are available in four standard capacity sizes — small, medium, large and extra large — ranging from 10PB up to 100PB. 

Schneider Electric partners with MK:U to develop smart campuses

Schneider Electric has announced a partnership with MK:U, part of Cranfield University. The two organisations will work closely together to shape the university courses of the future, ensuring that learning is applied to the real world, to prepare students to meet the current and future needs of the business world. Schneider Electric is investing with MK:U to train its degree apprentices in the coming years. Courses will include digital technology and solutions, cybersecurity, and a range of digital engineering options.  As the future campus of MK:U is developed, it will participate in the open tender process to provide expert advice on the smart technology required to create a sustainable-by-design campus from the ground up. Chris Collins, Country President and VP of Major Pursuits, Schneider Electric, says, “Students, businesses and the local community will all benefit from our partnership and the close collaboration that this will bring. Together, we can develop skills that are fit for future business, inspire a new generation, and help to promote DE&I talent to enter the STEM workforce though leading research and technology innovation projects.” “Working with MK:U, we will collaborate to innovate and promote sustainability to tackle the challenges of effective energy management that are critical to meeting net zero targets.” Professor Lynette Ryals OBE, Chief Executive of MK:U, says, “Close partnership with an organisation that has shared values and commitments to sustainability, inclusivity and representation in the industry is extremely important to us. MK:U is ‘built with business, for business’ and this partnership truly embodies this. This collaboration will help us shape education courses that will address the current and real challenges in the UK and ensure learning is aligned to business needs.” Click here for more on Schneider Electric.