Iceland is making a play for the growing offshore data centre
market, highlighting its cheap electricity and cool climate.
The island generates almost all its power from geothermal
and hydro-electric sources, meaning that power costs, which
account for the majority of data centre costs, are very low.
In addition, the climate reduces the costs associated with
cooling large data centres.
The Invest
in Iceland Agency cited a benchmarking study by PricewaterhouseCoopers
Belgium which found that Iceland is the most competitive location
for the operation of data centres. 'Iceland is a unique
low-cost location for large international data centres and
can offer clean, renewable energy at a very competitive price'
- said the organisation.
It added - 'The study showed that Iceland offers a lower
cost for data centres than the US, the UK and even India.
Iceland also has the second lowest corporate tax in the OECD
at 15 per cent, highly skilled IT labour at competitive prices
and low land and lease costs'.
Other industry sectors have already moved operations to Iceland
to take advantage of its abundant power resources - particularly
aluminium smelting which requires vast amounts of electricity.
Power is so cheap that some towns in Iceland have heated
pavements in the winter, but there could be a problem for
data centres.
Although the island has 720Gbps cable connections, the government
is planning two new submarine cables linking to Denmark in
the east and Greenland and the US in the west.
The cables should be completed by the end of the year and
will give a total capacity of 1.9Tbps to 3.8Tbps.
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