US company plans 323,000sq ft data centre in Cork

The first part of the facility will open in the first quarter of 2019

A US-based data centre owner and operator is entering the European market with its planned development of a Cork data centre.

T5 Data Centres, headquartered in Atlanta, will build its Cork centre on a 32.5 acre site in Little Island in a joint venture with JCD Group. The name of the centre is T5@Ireland.

The campus in question has planning permission in place for a 32 megawatt, 323,000 sq ft, data centre and has been designed by a US architecture group and a UK engineering company.

"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 US companies seeking a European data centre presence," said Pete Marin, chief executive and president of T5 Data Centres.

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Simon Coveney, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, welcomed the "substantial investment" saying it will increase Cork's attractiveness from a foreign direct investment perspective. "With the landing of the GTT (Hibernia) Express cable in Garretstown in 2015, which provides the lowest latency between Europe and the US, and the planned delivery of the Ireland France Subsea Cable (IFC-1) in Spring 2019, Cork has now become a strategic European location for the storage, hosting and processing of data," he added.

The first data centre, which will be a 7 megawatt, 84,000 sq ft facility, is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019.

Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in business