Proximity Data Centres Edge 4 Chester

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 Edge 4 Chester was originally operated as a pair of data centres (along with the new Proximity Liverpool site 10 miles to the north) by a large global enterprise user. As such, the build and design philosophy appears to reflect a high standard. This site is one of the larger ones acquired by Proximity with ample scope for expansion beyond the current built-out capacity.

Proximity Data Centres Edge 4 Chester facility description

Proximity’s Edge 4 Chester data centre is situated on the Chester Gate Industrial Park, located midway between Chester and Ellesmere Port and is connected by dark fibre to a sister site 10 miles to the north in Bamborough, and now known as Proximity Edge 5 Liverpool. Both sites were originally built and operated by a large global consumer goods company and this one, by far the larger, was opened in 2001.

The Proximity Chester data centre facility provides a net technical area of 54,919 sq ft across two data halls, so is a large site compared with the others being acquired by Proximity.  Protected by full perimeter fencing and multi-layer access control with 24/7 security, the site offers the ideal location for all colocation and edge computing requirements. The facility was acquired by Proximity in Q4 of 2020 for conversion into a multi-tenanted data centre, with the former owner remaining in situ as the ‘anchor’ tenant.

The site boasts multiple network providers via two diverse routes with the ability to terminate into multiple points within the facility. Proximity Edge 4 is also strategically placed for access to the Fibrespeed network with low latency links to Dublin and Manchester.

Technical stats