Building today,
to power tomorrow.
Data centres are buildings filled with computer servers and technology equipment.
They store, process, and manage digital information, which is crucial for businesses and daily life. In the UK, data centres are typically divided into:
Enterprise Data Centres
Used by single companies for their IT needs.
Co-location Data Centres
Shared spaces where multiple companies store their servers.
Cloud Service Providers
Companies that run their own data centres to offer online services.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems
Companies that require data centres to power their artificial intelligence systems.
Data centres are used for a huge amount of applications and online services that power our everyday lives. The image below contains just a few examples of what data centres support:
Importance and growth.
Data centres are vital for business operations, especially those which rely on their customers using the internet. Demand for these services has skyrocketed, growing over 500% from 2010 to 2018, and being used by a huge variety of companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The UK government has recognised the importance of data centres in its recently proposed National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which aimed to remove planning as an obstacle to new investment and delivery of new housing and infrastructure. The new NPPF regards data centres as part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.
The UK is in need of significant levels of new data centre capacity in order to grow as a global leader in technology. These facilities will be required to cater to both existing cloud demands as well as the increasing need for dedicated AI data centres.
DC01UK will likely provide critical cloud based solutions to both private and public enterprises, further securing and strengthening the backbone of UK-based companies.
Security and resilience.
Keeping data centres secure and resilient is crucial. The government sees data centres as a critical piece of the UK’s national infrastructure that supports the economy and public services. Protecting it from risks and disruptions is a top priority, and fulfilling the need for data centres is high on the Government’s agenda. The nature of data centre operations means that sites are kept secure but offer vital investment at the same time. This means that the site will attract a relatively low footfall, and will mostly operate passively, protecting against interference from outside entities.
On Thursday 12th September, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP, said in a government announcement:
“Data centres play an essential role in British society, housing some of our most important data from vital NHS records to sensitive financial information.
“This huge £3.75 billion proposed investment is a vote of confidence in our plans to support the sector to thrive, ensuring everyone across society can feel the economic benefits of its growth.
“To achieve this, we must make the sector resilient to the challenges of today – from heatwaves to cyber attacks – which is why only today we have announced we will class data centres as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’, on par with energy supply systems.”
Availability zones.
Availability Zones (AZs) are clusters of data centres located in close proximity to each other. Data centres within AZs often have independent power, cooling, and networking to minimise the risk of failures, and are connected by high-speed networks such as fibre optic, ensuring seamless transfer of data between users and data centres. AZs are crucial for maintaining the reliability and performance of cloud services that are provided by data centres.
DC01UK provides a genuinely tangible opportunity in a key location, in close proximity to several AZs, to develop a new data centre campus in a relatively short amount of time. The project has also secured the necessary power and fibre infrastructure nearby. This will significantly contribute to meeting the levels of cloud demand today, whilst future proofing the ability to provide for the growth in Artificial Intelligence technology tomorrow.