Vodafone and UAE data center firm Edgnex are to build a new data center in Turkey (aka Türkiye).
The companies this week announced plans to form a joint venture for a $100 million data center in Izmir; a city in western Turkey on the coast of the Aegean Sea.
Set to go live in Q1 2025, the facility will reportedly be Vodafone’s second in Izmir and sixth in the country overall.
Built to Tier III standards, the carrier-neutral facility will initially offer 6MW across 13,500 sqm (145,310 sq ft), expandable to 12MW.
Vodafone Turkey CEO Engin Aksoy said: "As Vodafone, we have an important role in the investment climate of our country. One of our future goals is to grow exponentially over the next five years with the investments we will make in the fields of data center, cloud solutions, cyber security, customized mobile network, and IoT.”
He continued: “Investing in reliable and high-capacity data centers for cloud computing remains a necessity. With this understanding, we joined forces with DAMAC and established a joint venture company to bring a new data center to our country. Our aim with this strategic partnership is to develop data center facilities in Turkey and other global markets.”
Vodafone currently operates five data centers in Turkey; two in Istanbul and one each in Izmir, Ankara, and Adana.
UAE property firm Damac Group set up Edgnex (aka Damac Data Centres) in 2021. The company is building facilities in Saudi Arabia in Dammam and Riyadh, which will deliver 55MW by 2025. Edgnex is also planning a data center in Amman, Jordan.
Damac and Edgnex last year signed an agreement to build a data center and cable landing station at the new King Abdullah Economic City outside Jeddah in Saudi.
Reports that Edgenex was exploring expansion into Turkey surfaced back in 2022.
Edgnex Data Centers VP and board member Aqil Ali added: “Our joint venture with Vodafone is a huge milestone for Damac and will provide an important digital infrastructure in the growing market on the west coast of Turkey. Our work with Vodafone will deliver a world-class facility in a rapidly developing market.”
None of the major US cloud providers have regions in Türkiye, which has a relatively small data center market.
Equinix operates one facility in Istanbul it acquired from Zenium in 2017, while Telehouse also operates a facility there in partnership with Teknotel. There are also several local players including Glasshouse and TekNet. Turkcell opened a new data center in Tekirdağ in 2022, while Türk Telekom broke out its data center unit into a standalone business the same year. Alibaba is reportedly developing a data center cloud region in Turkey.
Edgenex has previously hinted at further potential developments in Spain, Italy, and Germany.
It has also announced plans to expand into Malaysia and previously said it had secured land in Indonesia and Thailand.
In Ireland, Edgnex was set to build a data center campus that could reach 70MW+, on a greenfield parcel of land bought jointly by Damac and Dataplex in Abbotstown, near Dublin. However, Dataplex has since liquidated after Eirgrid denied the company power contracts at two data center sites.
