RWO awarded Cardiff data centre contract for Latos project

Newcastle-based engineering firm RWO has been awarded a contract to support the development of a new hyperscale data centre in Cardiff, marking a significant step in its expanding services within the data centre sector.

RWO will provide various civil, structural, and geo-environmental engineering services for the Latos Data Centres project. This facility, positioned as a Tier III asset, is tailored to meet the stringent demands of global technology companies. The contract's financial specifics remain undisclosed.

The announcement follows Latos Data Centres' plan to establish 40 new data centres across the United Kingdom by 2030. The Cardiff site will be the first to become fully operational in 2025, featuring 90 MVA across 50,400 square metres of floor space.

The site's power supply will derive exclusively from renewable energy, secured from the National Grid and supplemented by a secondary feed from the nearby 1000 MW Tremorfa Energy Park, recognised as one of the largest battery energy storage facilities globally.

RWO's involvement is in collaboration with Teesside-based Create Architecture, which is aimed at meeting the growing domestic demand for data processing and storage solutions. The data centre market is anticipated to witness considerable expansion, with the European market for Artificial Intelligence projected to grow by 25.9% in 2024 and continue with an annual growth rate of 15.9% until 2030.

This project in Cardiff is part of RWO's strategy to extend its operations beyond its traditional base in the North of England.

Ross Oakley, Managing Director of RWO, commented, "Securing this work is another big step forward for us as we continue to grow our presence in the burgeoning data centre design and build sector. Our involvement through the planning and pre-construction phase, coupled with our in-depth knowledge of highly-specialist industrial and temperature-controlled facilities such as this, has enabled us to bring forward an effective programme of engineering to deliver the project."

Latos intends to roll out these purpose-built data centres by 2030, allowing UK businesses to harness advanced computing technologies, including Artificial Intelligence.