Boost for UK as American data centre firm expands

‘The key drivers for demand will still be present for us’

THE world’s biggest provider of data centres is doubling the capacity of its biggest facility in Britain, in a vote of confidence in the UK remaining a top networking hub after it leaves the European Union.

Equinix, the American giant that paid £2.35bn to acquire British data centre company Telecity last year, plans to spend £26m on the upgrade to its flagship centre in Slough, used as the focal point for much of the highspeed financial trading in the City of London. The company is committing to upgrading the “LD6” facility despite pre-referendum warnings that investment in data centres – the banks of computer servers that companies use to store, process and send data – would be hampered by Britain’s vote to leave the EU in June.

New laws on where data must be stored and on how it is sent across borders may have to be agreed and written, with European laws currently stating that personal data about EU citizens must be stored within the EU itself.

This has led to fears that data centre providers such as Equinix will focus on continental Europe following the referendum as European companies and British businesses operating abroad are forced to store their data there.

Michael Winterson, managing director of Equinix Services, said that the decision to invest had been taken before the Brexit vote but had been unaffected by it.

“We knew the referendum was looming when we made the decision but the key drivers for demand will still be present for us. There have been periods of financial instability before and throughout that we’ve continued to invest in the business and build new data centres,” he said. Mr Winterson added that London will continue to be a “nervous centre” for data flows after Britain leaves the EU.

Businesses are increasingly moving towards “cloud computing”, where information is stored and processed in remote data centres rather than at onsite servers.

London is the biggest hub for data centres in Europe, accounting for almost half of total usage on the Continent.