Location, location, location. You hear it all the time. Companies looking for the best location for their Data Centers are looking to the Western edge of Europe. They’re looking at Ireland and Iceland. Both countries are looking to fuel their hard-hit economies with new data centers which may be connected with a new, $300 million transatlantic telecoms cable by 2013. Much of the interest is what we talked about before, cloud-computing in Boston, now finding it’s way to the remote areas of Europe.
As previously posted here demand for remote data centers is increasing, boosted by the rising trend of so-called cloud computing, where information is stored and processed at massive remote data centers.
Ireland wants to establish itself as a global hub for cloud computing. Its temperate climate suits the centers, which require huge amounts of power to run and to prevent from overheating.
Well known companies like Google is building a data center in Dublin and Microsoft already has one in the city. The centers will bring much-needed investments and new jobs to the country which fell to a severe recession after a property crash and bank sector meltdown.
Iceland, recovering from its own economic crisis, hopes the new cable will help it to benefit from its renewable hydro and geothermal energy resources for data centers.
Internet giants are trying to use Nordic locations to benefit from natural cooling, with Facebook building a center in Sweden and Google opening a data center in Finland at the site of an old paper mill.
You can read the entire Reuters article by clicking here.
