Digital Realty's European subsidiary Interxion is buying Lamda Hellix, the leading Greek data center operator.

Lamda Hellix's Athens campus is the largest in Southeastern Europe, with two carrier-neutral data centers totaling 22MW of capacity. Interxion has been expanding its European footprint rapidly since it was itself bought by Digital Realty for $8.4 billion in late 2019, with recent purchases of land and data centers in Austria, Croatia, Madrid, and Frankfurt, as well as a major campus on the way in Paris. No price was announced for Lamda Hellix.

Greek drama

Lamda Hellix was founded in 2001, and its first facility originally built as a cable landing station. It opened Athens-2 in 2016, after weathering the Greek debt crisis. The two data centers now hold around two-thirds of the Greek data center communities, according to Digital's announcement, which also says the highly-interconnected campus gives access to a fast-growing market, in which Athens provides a gateway to Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

The current management team, led by the founder, Apostolos Kakkos, will remain with Interxion. In the release, he says: "This partnership will... help facilitate the acceleration of Greece’s digital transformation. It will also further enhance Greece’s positioning as an upcoming Digital Gateway to Europe and accelerate our current development plans.”

David Ruberg, Chief Executive EMEA for Interxion/Digital, said Lamda Hellix's record “reflects the fundamentals of the opportunity in the region and the critical role Greece plays in the emerging global compute fabric. We believe a leading position in Greece offers significant opportunities for Interxion and Digital Realty together with Lamda Hellix."

In September, Interxion bought Altus IT, a provider in Croatia. In the last couple of months, it has also bought land for expansion in Vienna, as well as Madrid and Frankfurt. In France, Interxion has also been busy, opening a converted submarine base in Marseille as its MRS3 data center in July, and beginning construction of Digital Park, an ambitious 85MW campus in Paris in April, despite the surging Covid-19 pandemic.

Including Interxion, Digital Realty now has more than 280 data centers across 23 countries.