Welcome to Harper Harrison’s Data Center News. A regular release attempting to summarise some of the biggest news stories of the recent months along with some commentary of market trends. Operating across the USA, Europe and APAC within the Data Center sectors, our vast network across one of the fastestgrowing industries provide valuable insight and data in which we believe help our clients achieve their growth goals. Our commentary centres on Human Capital movement/trends rather than technical aspects of the industry. Download your pdf below:

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2 (May 2022) 

Despite a challenging landscape of rising construction/labour costs, environmental concerns and supply chain disruptions, the Data Center industry continues to show strong growth trends across 2022. The growing influence and investment from private equity firms has seen a number of high-profile acquisitions as well as interesting partnerships and mergers. 

From a staffing point of view, this remains a key barrier to growth for many organisations. Businesses continue to report huge numbers of vacancies left unfilled and whilst the market remains plentiful in terms of opportunity, talent is the number 1 concern across over 65% of the industry executives we have directly asked. Along with high inflation and cost of living trends, salaries continue to rise significantly, particularly for people with specific industry experience. We have seen a significant increase in Site Selection, Engineering, and Architectural requirements over the last 2 months with instructions up by over 20%. We suspect that the level of investment and activity at this stage of the development process will lead to significant labor challenges within the construction phases in 2023. 

North American News 

• Digital Bridge are to acquire Data Center Developer Switch in a deal valued at $11bn. As a result, Switch will become a private company and brings together two of the prominent innovators in Rob Roy and DigitalBridge’s Marc Ganzi. 
• Aligned are making further moves with news of it’s intention to build a data center at Loopholds gigawatt campus in Maryland. 
• A new 277 acre Data Center park has been proposed in Nokesville, Prince William County in Virginia. The more looks to re-designate the huge agricultural estate whilst allowing for the construction of around 10 Data Centers according to preliminary site plans. 
• O&G Industries have been granted approval by the local officials and residents in Beacon Falls, Connecticut to build a 32MW Data Center on a plot of land formally used as a sand mine. The facility will be a 2 story 294,164 square-foot (27,300 sqm) facility with 32MW of capacity, and will include a fuel cell. The site will still be connected to the grid and have backup generators 
• Blockchain firm AboutBit is to build a 115MW crytomine data center to be based in Merom, Indiana. The site which will use a liquid cooling system, will be based next to the Merom Generating Station- a coal plant which will be used to power the facility. 
• Stream Data Centers have filed for planning for a further Data Center in Wilmer- Dallas County. Work is due to begin on phase 1 of the project- a 135,000 sq ft and is due for completion in 2023. 
• A 100 MW Data Center campus is about to be developed in Nashville by Evoque. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners who own Evoque has announced a four phase development on an existing site which sits at 28.5 acre campus. 
• Meta have signaled their intent to expand it’s existing Dekalb Data Center campus based in Illinois. The site, once complete will be circa 2.4m sq ft with a total investment of over $1bn. 

Europe 

• According to reports, a Data Center in Finland has been cut off of the electricity grid due to the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Yandex Data Center which is a 40MW facility owned by the Russian Search engine was cut off the grid by Nivos Energia Oy and is now running on diesel. 
• Interxion- the Digital Reality company has recently announced its entry in to the Barcelona market. The recent acquisition of a land parcel in the borth west of the region has the capacity to accommodate 15MW of total installed IT power. The site is set for completion in 2024. 
• A new 23-hectare site technology park with and Data Center is currently under planning considering to be based in Didcot, Oxf 
• ordshire. The site would accommodate 1.18m Sq Ft of Data Center development as well as 20,000 sqm of battery storage. 
• Google is coming under increasing pressure from the Luxembourg government regarding a languishing Data Center project which has been in the pipeline since 2017 but yet to materialise. The project with a value of $1.1bn would potential use up to 12% of it’s electricity which has prompted protests from local groups. The land remains in Google’s possession following a 2017 acquisition of farmland in 2017 
• Amazon Data Services have recently acquired Ridgeway Distribution Center in Buckinghamshire, England fueling rumours it plans to develop a Data Center on the site which currently accommodates just under 400,000 sq ft of industrial space. This follows Amazon’s announcement that it would be spending 1.8bn GBP over the next 2 years within the UK on new Data Center developments. 

APAC 

• Grid Share- an energy start-up company, has recently announce plans to develop and build a bitcoin mining data center on New Zealand’s South Island. The project will be adjacent to a hydroelectric dam and will be a 2MW facility. 
• YT: Power International Berhad and GDS Holdings have announced a joint venture to co-develop 8 Data Centers top be based on the YTL Green Data Center Park in Johor, Malaysia 
• Fresh from the news of the Switch acquisition, DigitalBridge have announced $30m of investment in to Leading Edge Data Centres. The funds will be used to enable further expansion across Regional Australia. 
• Digital Edge have recently unveiled plans to build a 120 MW facility in Incheon, South Korea through a strategic partnershop with local developer SK Ecoplant. The project is set to be the largest commercial Data Center in South Korea.