Data centre expansion expected to create jobs

NEXT Generation Data (NGD) has announced the build-out of an additional 250,000 sq ft of capacity at its mega data centre campus near Cardiff.

It follows a spate of new customer contracts worth in excess of £125m over the next five years, including agreements with several Fortune 100 companies.

Construction work is already under way on NGD’s top floor to accommodate the new private and shared data halls.

The scale and complexity of the project require more than 500 construction workers to be permanently on-site, creating further substantial employment for locally based contractor firms.

NGD’s chairman Simon Taylor said: “NGD now employs over 50 personnel and, with this latest major top-floor expansion project, is providing a further boost to the local economy.

“We have over 500 construction workers on-site, plus around 120 further contractors providing IT and facilities management services.

“Our strong forward order book indicates that NGD will once again be a major source of local employment this year.”

NGD’s construction director Phil Smith, who recently joined from global construction engineering firm Spie, added: “NGD’s 750,000 sq ft multi-tier facility has already reached 30% occupancy, with 31 data halls, but we still have abundant space and power available to future-proof customer requirements as well as soak up new business demand.

“The largely pillar-free top floor is ideal for a variety of scalable data hall designs including private and shared facilities.”

Since opening its multi-millionpound data centre campus for business eight years ago, NGD has already notched up over 32MW of built space and remains Europe’s largest data centre campus.

In 2016 the company secured multi-million-pound funding from Infravia Capital Partners to accelerate expansion.

The highly secure facility features a 180MW renewably sourced power capacity and multiple high-speed low-latency fibre-network connections.