A plan to establish a £5million high-tech data centre in Aberdeen has seen construction of the facility begin today.
Brightsolid, the cloud computing company owned by DC Thomson, has commenced the development of the data centre at the Press and Journal’s offices on the Lang Stracht.
Richard Higgs, chief executive of Brightsolid, said the data hub would connect key industries in the region to a robust national and international digital network that will increase national connectivity resilience.
He said he is confident the facility will play host users in the energy, government and financial sectors and benefit the tech hub’s super-fast connections to Brightsolid’s existing facilities in Dundee.
“Part of the mission here is to bring business to Aberdeen,” he said.
“It is strategically important for us because Aberdeen is just 2miliseconds away from Dundee.
“We can move data very quickly between our world-class facilities in Dundee and our soon-to-be world-class facilities in Aberdeen.
“That is perfect for replication of data and synchronicity between the sites, which means it can provide all sorts of clever, totally resilient solutions.”
He said that Aberdeen firms would also benefit from being closer to where their data is stored.
“When you look at the energy sector and realise that 50% of its data processing happens within the M25 – that’s not the way to do it,” said Mr Higgs.
He added that locating a data centre in Aberdeen would add to the resilience of the UK network, as facilities for data in London were at greater risk of attack as fears of terrorism escalate.
“If I wanted to stop the UK internet connectivity it all goes out of one place. The nice thing about Aberdeen is it is also connected to Stavanger.”
Brightsolid has been working with major telecom providers to make the Aberdeen facility a secure hub, part of a high-speed, low-latency network that runs from Aberdeen through Dundee, Manchester and to London.
“That provides great potential to connect in the digital economy,” said Mr Higgs.
Customers that are co-located in the facility will also be able to take advantage of digital “meet me rooms”, where they will be able to transfer data without the need for external communications, which increases security and improves speeds.
And while most residents of Aberdeen aren’t that keen on the colder climate, it is a boon for Brightsolid as it will mean the data centre will be highly efficient to operate.
The operation will be cooled by a sealed, water-powered “ecofris” unit that is chilled by the weather outside.
“If you want to run a data centre, cold weather is good news,” he added.