European fiber firm Eurofiber has acquired Dutch IT infrastructure service provider Bytesnet and taken over two data centers in the Netherlands.
Bytesnet is a Dutch provider of colocation, HPC, cloud, and connectivity services, with data centers in Groningen (d’Root, built in 2018) and Rotterdam (Spanish Cube, 2009).
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies said Peter de Jong, co-founder and CEO Bytesnet, will remain “closely involved” with Bytesnet, partly to ensure smooth integration and continuity with Eurofiber. He will focus on business development and further growth.
“There is an increasing demand from parties who want to manage their data entirely or partially in the private Dutch cloud, so they can physically access it easily and have the guarantee that their crucial data does not leave our country,” said de Jong. “Together with the exponential growth of data, partly due to AI, there is a need for scaling up. To achieve this, we have sought a buyer with experience, ambition, and financial strength. We are therefore very pleased with the agreement with Eurofiber.”
The Groningen Internet Exchange (GN-IX) was founded in 1999 and spun out Bytesnet in 2008. The company, which started in Groningen, initially rented data center spaces at various data centers, including those of the University of Groningen, before building out its own spaces.
Spanning around 5,000 sqm (53,820 sq ft), the Groningen facility uses immersion cooling and is part of a district heating scheme with WarmteStad Groningen. The company has also said it is developing a fuel cell installation and green hydrogen pilot.
The Rotterdam facility is located in the Spaanse Kubus office building.
Eurofiber operates a fiber optic network stretching over 70,500 kilometers in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany. It also offers cloud infrastructure solutions including colocation and private cloud services from data centers in the Netherlands and France. On its website, the company says it operates eleven data centers across Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Arnhem, Brabant (2x), Lille (3x), Toulouse, and Bouillargues.
Eurofiber’s other data center acquisitions include Eura DC in 2019 – which operated space in an Etix facility in Lille and its own site in Douai – and Dutch provider Dataplace in 2016. 2023 saw the company acquire French B2B telecom providers Appliwave and Avelia from Septeo. It acquired the entirety of its joint venture with Vattenfall earlier this year.
Located at Tivolilaan 251, Dataplace's Arnhem facility was acquired from DataCenter Arnhem (DCA) in 2017. It previously housed the Akzo chemical company's data center until it was vacated around 2007, with DCA taking over the facility a few years later. The 1,000 sqm (10,760 sq ft) building offers 570 sqm (6,135 sq ft) of data center space – it also reuses its waste heat.
Eurofiber’s French hosting and telecoms unit FullSave opened a new data center in Auch last year.
