Cobalt

UK technology sector backs the construction of Cobalt Park Data Centre Campus:

Tom Wills-Sandford, the Deputy Director General of Intellect, the leading trade association for the UK's technology sector, officially marked the start of construction of Cobalt Business Park's new
10,262 sq m Data Centre Campus on Friday.

A 'groundbreaking' event was held at the Newcastle business park to celebrate the commencement of construction of the state-of-the-art campus, with guest of honour Tom Wills-Sandford and Simon Davies of developer Highbridge (NTCO) Limited performing the ceremony.

Intellect has recently published a report 'Data Centres - The backbone of the UK economy' which concludes that they underpin the UK's IT industry, and its ability to sustain the rest of the UK economy.

Tom Wills-Sandford comments, "Our increasingly knowledge based economy relies on IT and data centres to deliver solutions and services to people, organizations and government. As Digital Britain becomes a reality, data centres are important to all sections of the UK economy, and are key to the post-recession recovery, public service reform, and the transition to a low-carbon economy.

"The establishment of a new Data Centre campus in the North East of England can only be good news for both the regional and national economies. New investment in data centre infrastructure is a major benefit for businesses and the customers they serve"

The Cobalt Data Centre Campus will include the UK's only speculative data centre currently under construction, comprising 4 data halls and a total 4,262 sq m net of space, and an extensive refurbishment of a second data centre comprising 3 autonomous data halls and up to 6,000 sq m net of space.

The campus will offer high quality and competitive data centre solutions, including a minimum Tier III N+1 standard. The campus will also benefit from two independent National Grid connections providing 80 MVA, and the power densities of the two buildings will be tailored to provide up to 2,000 watts m2. The cable connectivity to the scheme is excellent through diverse route connections.

The new-build data centre is also on target to be awarded a BREEAM excellent rating, making it the greenest in the North of England

Guy Marsden, Highbridge Properties, comments, "The new Data Centre Campus at Cobalt will provide the highest standard of technical real estate available in the region, which at best currently has rudimentary data centre stock. It is a major development project, and the latest example of Highbridge's long term commitment to investing in the North East of England".

Completion of the new build DC1 data centre is expected September 2010.

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