T5 Enters European Market to Construct 46MW Campus

By Tudor Scolca

Rendering of T5@Ireland Building I

T5 Data Centers, in partnership with Ireland developers JCD Group, will begin construction work on a new, 46-megawatt data center campus, five miles from Cork City. This represents the first facility in Europe for T5. The partnership will construct the campus in three phases, with the first one slated for an early 2019 completion.

The planning phase of T5@Ireland is complete, with permissions granted from local authorities to construct three separate buildings at the 33-acre site in Little Island, County Cork. The first enterprise data center, totaling 84,000 square feet, will feature seven megawatts capacity at full build-out. The second building, also a seven-megawatt enterprise facility, will total 97,000 square feet. T5@Ireland will include a third, 323,000-square-foot center dedicated to cloud computing with a capacity of 32 megawatts.

Global connectivity hub

The partnership chose the campus site to take advantage of the changing political landscape, new data sovereignty laws and five different subsea cables:

• GTT Express, a 2858-mile, six-pair cable with a capacity of 53 Tbps, which connects Cork in Ireland to Lynn, Mass. in the U.S.
• GTT South and North, the two other transatlantic cables owned by GTT, complementing the Express one
• AEC-1, the 3439-mile cable built and owned by Aquacomms, with a 55 Tbps capacity, connecting Killala, Ireland to Shirley, N.Y. 
• The upcoming IFC-1, a 120 Tbps capacity cable connecting Ireland to France, slated for completion in the first quarter of 2019

In addition to the global reach, T5’s campus will be carrier neutral, with access to Ireland’s five largest domestic fiber providers. The facilities will benefit from a dual-fed power substation, delivering 60 megawatts. T5@Ireland Building I will feature block-redundant 1.75-megawatt electrical lineups, with densities ranging from five to 25 kW per rack. It is designed to qualify for LEED Silver certification upon completion.

“Now is the perfect time for T5 to build T5@Ireland as our springboard into Europe. Cork is a growing technology hub with a great talent pool and robust infrastructure. We expect T5@Ireland to attract European customers seeking a new location for their enterprise operations, and for U.S. companies seeking a European data center presence,” said Pete Marin, CEO & president of T5 Data Centers, in a prepared statement.

Image courtesy of T5 Data Centers