NorthC Group has acquired a new data center outside Zurich, Switzerland, in a sale/partial-leaseback deal.
In a press release, the Dutch colocation company this week announced a new data center in the Winterthur area of Zurich.
On LinkedIn, however, the company said it had acquired Kyndryl’s data center in the Swiss city. Terms were not disclosed.
The data center currently has an IT capacity of 1.8MW, with further expansion possibilities in the future.
Based in the Netherlands, NorthC has plans to become a regional player across the German-speaking DACH (Germany, Austria Switzerland) markets, with CEO Alexandra Schless telling DCD earlier this year: “We would like to further expand in the countries because ultimately, we want to have a nationwide platform of regional data centers, meaning we're looking at other regions in Germany and Switzerland.”
With this announcement, Schless said: “This will be the 17th NorthC data center, located in an important growth market, the Zurich region. We see the continuous need for digitization within enterprises and public organizations, which drives the demand for data center services.”
Kyndryl, the IT infrastructure services company spun out of IBM in 2021, will remain in place. Its Swiss unit is to be the first customer of the facility after signing a Managed Service Agreement for colocation services with NorthC. Other capacity in the Winterthur facility will be available to other organizations in the region.
Data centers are a conversation, says NorthC's CEO
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NorthC operates three other Swiss data centers, located in Münchenstein (Basel area) and Biel (Bern area), with a total floor space of 13,000 sqm (140,000 sq ft), more than 7.5MW of capacity. NorthC expanded into Switzerland last year after acquiring Netrics.
Frank Zachmann, Managing Director for the DACH region for NorthC Group: “Switzerland is an important growth market in the DACH region for NorthC and we are excited to expand our operations with a fourth data center. This will allow us to provide regional data center services to businesses in the Zurich area, the economic heart of Switzerland. With Kyndryl Switzerland GmbH as our first customer in the data center in Winterthur, we look forward to swiftly growing our customer base there.”
NorthC was formed in 2020 after the merger of The Datacenter Group (TDCG) and NLDC. The company operates 10 data centers in the Netherlands and two in Germany, with another Dutch facility in development in Eindhoven.
NorthC entered Germany in 2021 after acquiring the IP Exchange colocation business from German IT services provider q.beyond, taking over two data centers in Nuremberg and Munich with 14,000 sqm (150,600 sq ft) and more than 7MW of power capacity.
According to a Kyndryl certification page, the company operates data centers in Winterthur, Prilly, Lausanne, Meyrin, and Kloten.
