Proximity Data Centres Edge 5 Liverpool

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 5 Liverpool was operated as a pair of data centres with the new Proximity Edge 4 Chester site 10 miles to the south by a large global enterprise user. As such the build and design philosophy appears to reflect a high standard.

Proximity Data Centres Edge 5 Liverpool facility description

Proximity’s Edge 5 Liverpool data centre is situated south of the city centre in Bromborough on the Wirral and is connected by dark fibre to a sister site in Chester. Originally built and operated by a large global consumer goods company it was opened in 2004.

Today it offers two data halls of aproximately 10,000 sq ft, 1MW IT load or 250 cabinets each, with the former owner remaining in situ in one of the data halls. The facility was acquired by Proximity in Q4 of 2020 for conversion into a multi-tenanted data centre.

There is a full security presence with a 24/7 operation, and the site benefits from full perimeter high-security fencing. As with all the Proximity Edge data centres there are meeting rooms available and kitchen access.

The Proximity Edge 5 Liverpool data centre has 3MW of power available with full UPS supported by multiple generators and 85,000 litres of fuel for power backup. All the power is sourced from renewable energy providers including wind and solar adding to your company’s green credentials.

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