HPC Company Northern Data buys Hydro66 data center for 25 million euros
Northern Data's new facilities are located in the northern Swedish city of Boden, which has an average annual temperature of 1.3 degrees Celsius due to its location about 80 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. This makes it an ideal location for passive cooling of HPC (high performance computing) hardware with significant energy savings.
In addition to ideal temperature conditions for HPC, Northern Sweden is characterized by high connectivity and a regional surplus of electricity from renewable energy sources at very low rates. Electricity for the new Northern Data site is generated entirely from renewable energy produced by hydropower plants in the region. The capacity of local hydropower plants is around 4.5 gigawatts (GW) and produces around 14 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, which is available to Northern Data at the lowest electricity prices in the EU.
Due to the low air temperatures near the Arctic Circle, excellent energy efficiency is achieved, as measured by the PUE ("Power Usage Effectiveness") value of 1.07. The PUE value is a measure that relates the total energy consumption of a data center to the power consumed by the IT infrastructure. The closer this value is to 1.0, the more efficient the Data Center. With a score of 1.07, Northern Data's future data center is among the world leaders, well below the industry average of 1.67.
The site, which has already won awards for its high efficiency, meets the highest requirements, has multiple ISO certifications and has been fully operational since 2019 thanks to data center operator Hydro66. Due to high customer demand, Northern Data will immediately start allocating hardware and continue to expand the center on a large scale.
New options are constantly being considered
Aroosh Thillainathan, CEO of Northern Data, commented, "Due to the high demand for HPC capacity, we are constantly evaluating options to secure additional centers quickly through acquisitions and to build our own Data centers build up. This will enable us to further accelerate our growth. Given this strategy, the new facilities in northern Sweden are not only a real success, but also an important expansion element for our company. Not only can we use it immediately, but we can also expand and develop it significantly, which we will now do. Our new center offers significant Advantages such as lower energy rates and high efficiency, which will make it an important part of the Northern Data group in the future. '
The acquisition of the entire data center assets, including the two operating companies and part of the equipment, is subject, among other things, to a satisfactory due diligence process and will be carried out through the issuance of shares for 21 million euros with a full lock-up period of two years and a cash component of 4 million euros.
