Digital Realty opens fifth Irish data centre as part of €200m investment

9 May 2019

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Global data provider Digital Realty has opened its fifth data centre in the Profile Park campus in Dublin.

One of the big data centre providers, Digital Realty, has officially opened its fifth data centre in Ireland. Located at the Profile Park campus in Dublin, the new facility marks a 5MW expansion as part of the area’s second phase of development.

In its announcement, the company said this now brings its data centre investment in Ireland to €200m. Later this year, Digital Realty’s Clonshaugh facilities will also undergo further development in order to expand further in the Dublin region.

“Our new investment in Profile Park and ongoing investment in Ireland highlights our confidence that the technology sector in the region will continue to grow,” said Valerie Walsh, senior vice-president of portfolio at Digital Realty.

“The new facility has been built to a market-leading, quality standard that maintains Digital Realty’s global standards and sets the benchmark for data centres worldwide. As we further invest and develop the campus, we will continue to innovate in our data centre design and construction.”

Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com last year, Walsh cited a company report while saying that there is a serious amount of untapped potential for data centres in Ireland.

“The presence of global technology giants such as Apple and Google, alongside homegrown start-ups such as Intercom, has been propelling 10.4pc growth in the country’s data economy each year – twice that of the wider economy and nearly double that of the UK’s data economy,” she said.

“Critically, the report estimates that there is €9.1bn euro of untapped potential in the Irish digital economy which could be unleashed if there was a greater investment in data and more skilled workers.”

New research carried out by Digital Realty found that nearly half (47pc) of Irish IT decision-makers feel optimistic about the growth of the tech sector in Ireland. The IT decision-makers surveyed said the areas most likely to have an impact on the sector in Ireland include Brexit (56pc), GDPR (36pc) and 5G roll-out (23pc).

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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