Operator and developer Global Switch has completed the final stage of its Hong Kong data center, which now has 70,000 sq m (750,000 sq ft) of IT space.
The facility is close to multiple cable landing stations and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange first opened in 2017. The new phase takes the data center complex to 100MW, but it opens at a time when rumors are still circulating that Global Switch is at least partially up for sale by its Chinese owners.
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Fast growing area
The data center, on the industrial estate at the Tseung Kwan O cable landing station, is Global Switch's biggest, as well as being the largest multi customer, carrier, and cloud neutral data center in Hong Kong.
The new phase adds 58MW to the initial stage launched three years ago, taking the complex to the full 100MW of power available to the site, in five interlinked buildings.
Global Switch claims the building is highly efficient, helping customers meet their climate goals. Global Switch says it has an annualized power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.3 across the entire facility. This is a "design" PUE, since full PUEs can't be evaluated till the whole site is operational, but it has been verified by CBRE Romonet, according to the Global Switch announcement.
The building has a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum rating, and a Hong Kong Green Building Council’s BEAM Plus Gold rating. It uses an elevated temperature-free cooling system and high efficiency uninterruptible power system (UPS). It also has thermal storage tanks with a capacity of 700 sq m, that can continue to cool the facility at full load even if the city power fails.
The complex has two completely independent 132kV power sources with three on-site 50MVA transformers in N+1 configuration. There are static uninterruptible power supplies (SUPS) with a generator back-up supply, and diesel rotary uninterrupted power supplies (DRUPS) for standby power. The data center has an impressive installation of lithium ion batteries providing over 13MW of power.
As well as Tseung Kwan O, the data center has access to two other fiber landing points, and has multiple interconnected Meet Me Rooms, with a range of cloud providers, ISPs, and telecoms providers in situ, including anchor tenant China Telecom.
“Despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Global Switch team, our contractors and supply chain have worked tirelessly to ensure that the final stage of our Hong Kong data center was completed, allowing our customers to commence ramp up of their deployments on schedule," said John Corcoran, Global Switch CEO. “We have witnessed accelerating demand in this market and in addition to completing the data center, we have also completed major fit-outs for financial services and hyperscale cloud providers."
Sale rumors
Global Switch has been majority-owned by China's Jiangsu Shagang Group since 2018, which has not proved popular in Australia. The Australian government is in the process of removing public sector IT from the company's Sydney data center, with a current deadline of July 2022.
In 2019, Shagang failed to launch Global Switch on the Hong Kong stock market, and early in 2021, Bloomberg reported that Shagang was exploring a sale of Global Switch, valuing it at around $11 billion (£8 billion). Those rumors continue, with The Australian reporting earlier this month that Global Switch is working with investment banks Morgan Stanley and UBS to sell 49 percent of the business.
