Iceland's Geothermal-Powered Data Center Gets Funding

from the data-center-location-is-always-greener dept

Iceland has been looking to bring large data center investments to its shores for some time now, and it has recently secured funding for a 44-acre data center campus that will be built on the former NATO Command Center in Keflavik, Iceland. The companies behind this data center boast that Iceland has 100% free cooling, renewable energy resources and predictable forecasting of energy pricing. Additionally, Verne Global says this installation will be powered by geo-thermal and hydroelectric resources, and thereby it'll become the industry's first carbon neutral wholesale data center.

But some folks bring up the usual concerns about data center locations -- will it have enough bandwidth, is the local job market flush with proficient IT engineers, where's the back-up if there's an earthquake? Well, it looks like Iceland has plenty of bandwidth, but it also has real earthquake threats -- with a 6.1 earthquake that occurred in 2008 (not to mention a 2004 volcano eruption). So maybe Iceland isn't ideal, but the country presently has more power generation capacity than it can consume by itself domestically -- and the energy in Iceland is "green" in terms of carbon emissions. But will that be enough to attract large data center investments? Would you rely on an Icelandic data center for your business? Would you move to Iceland to oversee a data center?