A new £350 million data centre has been earmarked for a site in Manchester.
Kao Data said it has acquired a former industrial site at Kenwood Point in the city, where it aims to build a new 40-megawatt (MW) facility.
The move follows Kao’s acquisition of two other data centres last year as part of its strategic expansion in the sector.
The new data centre will provide space for nine data halls, supporting the city’s “growing technology ecosystem and the UK’s largest high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors outside of London and the Oxford-Cambridge arc”.
A 39,000 sqm site has been earmarked for redevelopment of Kao’s first data centre in the North of England, it added.
Design and sustainability
The new facility will provide sustainable, OCP-Ready™ and NVIDIA-DGX Ready certified infrastructure for advanced computing, said Kao.
It will also deliver power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.2, be powered by 100% renewable energy, and utilise hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) in its generators, “providing the highest-grade, sustainable data centre capacity in the region”.
The data centre will incorporate heat reuse capabilities, supporting local communities in its immediate vicinity.
“Our move into Manchester marks an important next step in the continued evolution of our organisation, and we’re excited to bring our industry-leading data centre platform to one of the UK’s most influential technology and business hubs,” said Spencer Lamb, chief commercial officer, Kao Data.
“We believe our new facility will set a new standard for sustainable data centres within the region and will provide a piece of foundational infrastructure that supports both Northern England’s advanced computing clusters, and the UK Governments’ ambitions to become a technological and economic powerhouse for HPC and AI.”
In March, the UK Government pledged £3.5 billion to science and technology industries, with around £1 billion earmarked for next-generation supercomputing and AI research.
The new data centre is planned to be operational in late 2025.
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