Global Switch gets go-ahead for London Docklands data centre expansion

Global Switch, a provider of large-scale, cloud neutral data centres in Europe and Asia-Pacific, has gained full planning approval for a new data centre located at London's Docklands hub. Titled 'London South,' the five-floor, 27,000 square metre data centre will be added to the existing data campus, extending the total area to 115,000 square metres. Upon completion, the London site, which also encompasses London East and London North, will constitute one of the most substantial purpose-built data centre campuses in Europe, equipped with 126MVA of utility power supply capacity.

The new addition will provide a latency-minimised, superior interconnected OCP compliant data centre service, supplying 40MW of IT power capacity. Located less than a mile away from Canary Wharf and within a 3.5-mile radius of the City of London, the data centre caters to a variety of densities, ranging from 3,000W/square metre to greater than 5,000W/square metre. The centre also offers liquid cooling optionality, making it an ideal environment for supporting the latest AI solutions with low latency.

The London South centre complements the London East and London North facilities that already provide high-density air and liquid cooled solutions. This data centre therefore offers further growth capacity at the campus to accommodate new and existing customers seeking operational excellence in a low-latency Tier 1 location.

Aligned with the Mayor of London's policy provisions within the Energy Hierarchy of the London Plan, the data centre is designed to be energy efficient and reduce carbon footprints, thus reflecting Global Switch's commitment to environmental sustainability. The site already benefits from 100% renewable energy. The London South centre has been developed to incorporate the latest energy efficient and resilient technologies, which aim to reduce power consumption.

Global Switch, with over 25 years of expertise, targets a less than 1.2 annualised Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) for the new data centre. The centre's design is intended to achieve an Excellent BREEAM rating, indicating that the PUE and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) would exceed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact (CNDCP) goals and be among the industry's best.

In keeping with the existing London campus, London South will feature two diverse building entry points to accommodate the present and future growth, increasing the total on the campus to ten. Moreover, two additional Meet Me Rooms will be created, creating an interconnected network of six across the entire campus, granting the data centre immediate access to most of the world's leading networks and cloud on-ramps.

"In a market expected to double in size by 2025/26, Global Switch's London South data centre is ideally positioned to provide highly resilient, low PUE space for a wide variety of customers. This latest addition to our London Campus will meet the burgeoning needs of hyperscale, large enterprise and cloud and managed services providers who are looking to house their mission-critical infrastructure," stated Adam Eaton, London's Executive Group Director.

CEO Ashley Muldoon added, "This new addition to our London campus, will provide existing and new customers with further expansion opportunities in yet another Tier 1 located, low latency, high density data centre solution. Our London Docklands campus will continue to play an essential role in delivering high power density suitable for HPC and AI in the London market."