An artist’s impression of the new T5 data centre campus in Cork. Image: T5
Cork could be the new go-to location for data centre campuses as Dublin runs out of power capacity.
Atlanta-headquartered data centre player T5 Data Centers is to establish a major campus near Cork city that will employ 200 people during its construction and at least 15 people full-time once it is operational.
The T5@Ireland campus is a 32.5-acre, 46-megawatt (MW) dedicated data centre campus with full planning permission for two enterprise facilities of 7MW each, and a cloud targeted facility of 32MW.
‘Cork is a growing technology hub with a great talent pool and robust infrastructure’
– PETE MARIN
The site will be connected to Ireland’s five largest domestic fibre carriers as well as subsea connectivity to the US, UK and Europe via GTT Express, GTT North & South and Aquacomm’s AEC-1 cable.
Dublin is at capacity, but Cork has robust infrastructure
An artist’s impression of the new T5 data centre campus in Cork. Image: T5
The investment is understood to be driven by opportunities posed by Brexit and the fact that Dublin – traditionally the preferred data hub for Ireland – is experiencing a restriction on data centre growth due to a need for more power.
T5@Ireland will be fed by 60MW of power from an adjacent dual-fed substation, and can deliver this power within expedited delivery deployments of new facilities.
A spokesperson for T5@Ireland said that availability of power and other market factors are driving more data centre operations to strategic locations such as Cork.
In Cork, Building I will be a 7MW, 84,000 sq ft facility. It is due for completion in the first quarter of 2019, which will coincide with the landing of the Ireland-France Subsea Cable, the first cable to directly link Ireland to mainland Europe. Building I will be a Class A data centre designed to meet LEED Silver requirements, equipped with Liebert DSE cooling for modular growth. It will have block-redundant 1.75MW electrical lineups and will accommodate densities from five to 25kW per rack.
Building II will be a 97,000 sq ft, 7MW data centre, and Building III will be a 323,000 sq ft 32MW data centre.
The Cork location offers ideal climate conditions for indirect, free air cooling.
Cork’s time has come
An artist’s impression of the new T5 data centre campus in Cork. Image: T5
“Now is the perfect time for T5 to build T5@Ireland as our springboard into Europe,” said Pete Marin, CEO and president of T5 Data Centers.
“Cork is a growing technology hub with a great talent pool and robust infrastructure.
“We expect T5@Ireland to attract European customers seeking a new location for their enterprise operations, and for US companies seeking a European data centre presence.
“This is the next phase of T5’s global expansion strategy and shows our commitment to serve our customers wherever they need us.”
Image: T5
