European cloud services provider OVH has announced the official launch of its first operational UK data centre in London.
With the personal backing of the city’s mayor Sadiq Khan, the French company has highlighted its intent to heavily invest in the UK despite Brexit, as part of a €1.5 billion (approx. £1.3 billion) global expansion.
The global investment plans follow a capital increase of €250 million from two investment funds led by KKR and TowerBrook in 2016.
The new data centre will be joined by two more OVH facilities in the country, which are due to open over the next few months.
Following launches in Australia, Singapore, Poland and more recently Germany, this first UK facility is the fifth data centre OVH has opened in less than a year.
The UK data centre is based in South-East London, houses 40,000 servers and has been built using OVH-engineered components, including a water-cooling system which was installed in June.
According to Hiren Parekh, director of cloud at OVH EMEA, the new London data centre marks a significant move forward for the French firm in supporting its UK customers.
‘We are offering low latency, guaranteed bandwidth and enhanced DDoS protection for all of our customers. It is particularly beneficial for those working in the finance sector or public services, where hosting data in-country is a key requirement in order to be compliant with data protection and governance, and the protection standards of their customers,’ he noted.
The site of the new facility was previously owned by a telecom operator and is situated close to two substations which will provide all of the necessary electrical capacity.
It is also within close proximity to OVH’s point of presence (PoP) in central London and is directly linked to the company’s global network of data centres via OVH low latency fibre-optic solutions.
