Telehouse is to expand its Telehouse South facility in London, UK.
The KDDI-owned company this week announced Skanska has been appointed as the contractor to deliver the first phase of the main works, which will include completing two floors of colocation space by June 2024.
The facility, which officially opened in Spring 2022, will see new mechanical, electrical, and public health (MEPH) infrastructure implemented, while its overall capacity will increase to 7.7MW across three floors of colocation space.
The company said the revamp will include the redesign of existing plant areas, as well as the removal and recycling of all redundant plant and equipment from the entire building. The upgrade will also feature new cladding to improve building insulation and facility security.
Other upgrades include new vehicle management systems, boundary fencing, CCTV upgrades and analytics, new security gatehouse and cycle storage, and new meeting rooms and breakout spaces.
Telehouse South launched in March 2022 in the Docklands of East London. The ten-story facility was acquired from Thomson Reuters in 2021, with the first phase of the project completed in less than 12 months after the acquisition. Telehouse says it will have invested £280 million ($342.4m) once fully developed.
At launch, the first phase of development offered capacity for up to 668 racks and 2MW of power across two data halls and 1,700 sqm (18,300 sq ft), with the company saying a further upgrade to 2.7MW for an additional data hall was scheduled for the end of 2023.
At full buildout, the 31,000 sqm (333,700 sq ft) facility will provide 12,000 sqm (129,000 sq ft) of colocation space across six floors and a total power capacity of 18MW.
At the time of launch last year, Telehouse said it made the choice to refurb rather than build a new building due to speed to market amid increasing customer demand, alongside the sustainability benefits of keeping the existing structure. The data center, purpose-built in 1989 as the Thomson Reuters London Docklands Technical Centre, was put up for sale in mid-2019.
Takayo Takamuro, managing director, Telehouse Europe, said: “Situated at the heart of our iconic Docklands campus, Telehouse South has rapidly established itself as a critically important connectivity hub both for ourselves and our clients. The ongoing buildout and development of this state-of-the-art data center underlines the high standards of security, sustainability, and operational excellence that Telehouse is able to deliver to its data center customers today.”
Skansa managing director, Dan Williams, added: “We’re very pleased to be providing the fit-out and associated construction works. We have a history of successfully delivering a wide range of data centers and this project aligns with our core expertise.”
Established as Japanese telecom company KDDI’s data center arm in 1989, Telehouse's London North facility was the first purpose-built carrier-neutral data center in Europe, and the company now owns more than 45 colocation facilities in major cities around the world, including four others in London.
The Telehouse South cooling design uses waterless free cooling chillers with elevated water temperature, that use external ambient temperature to reject heat, rather than using a refrigeration process. This will allow Telehouse South to use free cooling throughout the year.
