Articles from timesplus.co.uk

Data centres were taboo for investors only a handful of years ago, as billions of dollars were burnt building facilities that sat idle in the post-tech boom.

Even today, they are a speculative investment, with power prices and demand likely to change drastically over the eighteen months to two years that it takes to build a warehouse.

Colt — formerly City of London Telecom — has taken a leaf out of Johnny Cash’s book and come up with a way of building data centres one piece at a time. The modular system works like Lego bricks, allowing companies to build a base and then plug more and more capacity in as necessary. The modular design was developed internally by Colt’s team and has been used to expand its own capacity in London and Paris.

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Iceland has turned to the internet and to its own extraordinary natural resources in its efforts to refocus an economy still bearing the scars of the country’s banking collapse.

A new venture led by Verne Global, a British company set up by veterans of the American data centre industry, will create the world’s first data centre powered entirely by geothermal and hydro-electric energy.

It is hoped that it could be a trend-setter for the industry and for Iceland. The likes of Facebook, Google and Yahoo! have all investigated the country in the past but have been put off by the lack of connectivity.

However, sub-sea cables have been installed to solve that issue and, according to Iceland’s Foreign Minister Ossur Skarpheoinsson: “This is the beginning of a new chapter of the industrial life of Iceland. When something is new, you need someone to go first. Verne is ...

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