China Mobile opens first EU data centre in UK
China Mobile International has opened a data centre in the UK, marking its first such facility in Europe. The new site serves as an international network exchange hub and internet data centre (IDC), and will facilitate connectivity between Asia and Europe.
The UK facility connects with the Chinese telco's Singapore data centre, launched in July, as well as its global network centre in Hong Kong, said China Mobile in a statement Thursday. It added that it currently was building more data centres in Frankfurt, Germany, as well as other locations.
Located in Slough Trading Estate, the UK facility houses more than 1,600 racks and is certified with the Uptime Institute Tier III TCDD data centre standards. It offers 99.99% service and power availability.
The data centre has a direct connection with China Mobile's local ring in Europe and the Asia-to-Europe SEA-ME-WE 5 subsea cable network, linking it to China Mobile's Asia-Pacific submarine cable systems -- SJC, APG, and SJC2.
These would enable connections within and between Europe, Middle East and Africa, Indian Ocean, and Asia-Pacific, according to the telco.
The new site also could tap terrestrial cable systems covering China's Belt and Road region, it said, pointing to the Transit Europe-Asia 2 (TEA-2), Transit Europe-Asia 3 (TEA-3), Europe-Russia-Mongolia-China (ERMC), and Diverse Route for European and Asian Markets (DREAM) network. Collectivity, the network would provide connectivity to more than 300 cities in 31 provinces and regions across Mainland China.
The UK facility also would serve as one of China Mobile's Cloud Connect POPs (points-of-presence), giving access to public cloud providers and cloud exchange platforms.
China Mobile International's chairman and CEO Li Feng said: "We continue to see strong customer demand for connectivity, cloud, and content delivery solutions between Asia-Pacific and Europe, but also among with Middle East and Africa regions.
"In the big data era, data centres play a key role in facilitating information exchange," Li said, adding that the UK data centre would support customers in the financial sector as well as online businesses.
China Mobile International currently operates 70 terrestrial and submarine cable resources worldwide and 168 POPs, facilitating international transmission bandwidth totalling more than 60T.
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