WIREDGOV

NGD Europe is now operational with its first long-term tenants already installed following completion of the essential phases of a £200 million project which began nearly two years ago. This involved converting and upgrading the 750,000 sq ft former Hynix semiconductor plant into a state-of-the-art tier 3 mega data centre.

Opening the centre Lesley Griffiths said the major, high profile investment by Next Generation Data represented very good news for Wales and the local economy.

“The Digital Economy is one of the priority sectors for research and development in Wales, and for a highly respected company such as Next Generation Data to locate and develop this site here in Newport sends out a strong, clear message.

“Next Generation Data will provide opportunities for higher level skills, including the technician base required to ensure the company, and economy, remains competitive far into the future.

“This project proves there is added value through investing in Wales and with the support of the Assembly Government, the high level technology infrastructure necessary to meet growing global demand can become a reality.”

The ISO 14001 accredited centre has its very own on-site power sub-station connection capable of sustaining a City the size of Bristol; a wide range of on-site dark fibre carrier interconnects to enable high speed low latency connectivity; triple-skinned walls, bomb proof glass, prison grade perimeter fencing, infra-red detection, biometric recognition and ex-special forces security guards.

Next Generation Data Ltd., the owner and operator of the new data centre  has worked closely with the Assembly Government on the project and is now making a wide range of custom built co-location data halls available to large UK and international organisations.

Contracts totalling over £20 Million have already been concluded with BT and Logica which began moving their extensive data centre IT operations into the high security NGD Europe facility last month.

"We are very pleased to have successfully transformed this impressive but unused local landmark building into a truly world-class data centre and sincerely thank the Welsh government and all our suppliers and contractors for helping us get the project off the ground and up and running on time," said Simon Taylor, Chairman and Co-founder of Next Generation Data.

"We believe our success here will send a strong message to UK and international organisations signalling Wales as an excellent environment for business relocation.”

NGD Europe is designed to cater for all current and future computing requirements as befits a true next generation data centre.

UK and overseas organisations with several older data centre sites that have become too small or constrained by lack of power now have a great opportunity to move to Wales and save money by consolidating all their operations under NGD Europe's vast roof.