OVHcloud's recycled datacentres highlight sustainable innovation

OVHcloud has unveiled an in-depth look at its recycled data centres, shedding light on the historical uses of the buildings that now serve as hubs for cloud services. As part of its sustainability initiative, the company repurposes existing structures to avoid the carbon impact associated with new constructions. Currently, twenty-eight of its data centres have been recycled from various previous functions.

Gregory Lebourg, Global Environment Director at OVHcloud, emphasised the importance of sustainability to the company's ethos. "Sustainability has been a key part of our company approach since its establishment in 1999," he said. "We often talk about our vertical integration, which enabled us to re-use 36% of our server components in 2023. But we can also build a datacentre in almost any kind of existing building – and some of our buildings had very interesting ‘first lives’ before we met them."

The company's facilities worldwide include an eclectic mix of previous uses. The Beauharnois, Canada facility, which now assembles servers for the North American region, was once a Rio Tinto aluminium plant. Powered entirely by green energy from Hydro-Quebec’s power plant, this building can produce nearly 1,000 servers per week, including specialised water-cooling equipment designed by OVHcloud.

In Croix, France, an industrial plant previously owned by Ontex, a manufacturer of personal care products, now hosts OVHcloud's European factory. This facility employs a skilled workforce and state-of-the-art machines, including lasers used to cut and fold server trays prior to assembly. The site was also previously owned by Tyco, now Covidien, which produced security products for the healthcare sector.

The Erith, UK facility began as a Mercury Communications switch centre in the 1990s. It later became part of One2One/T-Mobile, which eventually merged into EE. Since becoming an OVHcloud datacentre in 2016, it has also become home to a falcon that nests in the telecommunications tower, helping to control the pigeon population on-site.

In Gravelines, France, a former Rexam aluminium can production plant was repurposed into a data centre in 2013 after a four-year hiatus. This facility now includes various cloud environments, such as the highly secure SecNumCloud, making it one of the largest in OVHcloud’s portfolio.

Across the Atlantic, the Hillsboro, US, data centre was once an electronic piano factory before its transformation in 2017. Similarly, in Limburg, Germany, a former printing factory near Frankfurt was opened as OVHcloud’s 21st datacentre in 2016 and later expanded to include a second facility.

One of the more historically significant sites is the Vint Hill, USA facility, which has a background in military operations. Initially an NSA signals intelligence facility in 1942, it played a critical role during World War II by intercepting communication crucial to the D-Day invasion. Today, besides housing an OVHcloud data centre, the site also serves as a scenic location for weddings.

Emma Dennard, VP of Northern Europe at OVHcloud, highlighted the importance of sustainable practices: “We’re always trying to keep our business operations sustainable, including re-using old facilities wherever possible. We’re dedicated to bringing the best possible offerings to businesses around the world, including both owned data centres and our smaller, more agile local zones."

"We’ll continue to balance innovation and sustainability, ensuring that the needs of today don’t compromise the world of tomorrow – and a key part of this is celebrating the colourful, fascinating histories of some of the buildings that we occupy,” she concluded.