Proximity Data Centres Edge 3 Bridgend

Colo-X analysis

Proximity Data Centres is a new provider for the UK data centre market, commencing operations in 2020 and the only specialist ‘edge’ focussed operator. They are aiming to open a string of 20 data centres across the country within 2020 and 2021 – a very short time frame. The company believe that a portfolio of 20 sites can be located to offer less than 15 miles distance from 95% of the population located outside of London, so ultra-low latency and 5G-related deployments will be one of their key selling points, ideal for edge applications.

The scale of Proximity’s ambitions should not be underestimated and they could easily become one of the biggest data centre providers in the UK regional data centre market. For example, if each site is 2MW, they could quickly account for 40–50MW of new supply in a market of that is only 150MW in total at present.

The Proximity sites have generally been built, owned and operated by large systems integrators who now have increasing volumes of spare capacity as legacy enterprise clients shift into cloud services. The Proximity model is that the existing site owner remains in situ but becomes a tenant. Thus all the new Proximity sites will already have decent occupancy from the outset with 2MW or so of spare capacity available (around 500 racks).

While a new operator, the Proximity management team have long-standing industry CVs from the data centre industry, telecoms and enterprise IT sectors.

Proximity Data Centres Edge 3 Bridgend facility description

The Proximity Edge 3 Bridgend site was cquired by Proximity in Q4 2020 and only the second Welsh colocation data centre to be listed on Colo-X. It was originally built and operated by a large systems integrator.

This data centre offers highly secure colocation for the South Wales conurbation. The facility is conveniently located almost exactly midway between Swansea and Cardiff ensuring low-latency connectivity to both cities and easy access from junction 36 of the M4, which is about 3 miles to the north. The centre of Bridgend is only a mile away.

The data centre sits within a high- security perimeter. The building is two-storey brick construction featuring extensive office facilities on the first floor. The ground floor provides 2MW of customer power divided into multiple data halls across 11,693 sq ft. There is scope on site to add a further 2MW of customer power.

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