By 2025, the municipality of Neder-Over-Heembeek will be home to a 32-megawatt colocation data centre. Initiated by the Dutch company KevlinX, this project is supported by BECI and its former chairman Marc Decorte, who were quick to see its strategic and economic potential for the Brussels-Capital Region.
A major new project for Brussels. Dutch data specialist KevlinX is installing a 32-megawatt data centre. Citydev.brussels, the development company for the Brussels-Capital Region (formerly SDRB), has made a 2.5-hectare plot of land on its Galilei site in Neder-Over-Heembeek available for construction.
The plan was submitted in 2017 by KevlinX, which was looking to develop a colocation data centre where companies could house servers and IT equipment in Belgium. At that point, the company presented its idea to Marc Decorte, former chairman of BECI, who had spotted the strategic potential that such an initiative could represent for the Brussels-Capital Region. ‘It is unthinkable today to develop an economy in Brussels without being digitally and globally connected’, he pointed out.
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A colocation data centre allows several companies to rent space to host their servers and IT equipment. The term ‘colocation’ refers to the numerous infrastructures of different companies located in the same data centre. |
Brussels, a strategic location
This project could well position Brussels on the international stage, as it currently lags behind the ‘FLAP’ (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris) when it comes to data. These four major cities are renowned in the data centre market and ‘have between 500 and 1,000 megawatts of data centre colocation capacity, while Brussels has between 30 and 50 megawatts’, Marc Decorte explains.
The KevlinX project therefore promises to almost double the Region's current capacity (32 MW). ‘It's a strategic project for Brussels, which is the centre of Europe after all. And if it really wants to be a digital player of the future, it needs to welcome the construction of data centres on the scale of its ambitions', the former Vice-President Digital of the Shell Group adds.
‘Developing a large-scale physical business without its digital component has little chance of success’ - Marc Decorte
The development of a data centre represents economic potential for the Brussels Region, helping it to catch up in a fast-growing market. ‘It is absolutely clear and obvious that today and in the future, the development of a large-scale physical business without its digital component has little chance of success. What's more, according to Citydev.brussels' analysis, the new data centre at Neder-Over-Heembeek is helping to create around 150 jobs at all levels: programmers, technicians, electricians, maintenance, security and cleaning staff.
So when KevlinX proposed the plan, ‘we couldn't miss the opportunity to do it in Brussels. As [former] chairman of the Chamber, this project was a no-brainer, so we didn't have to think too long to help them develop the project,’ says Marc Decorte.
Brussels, a catalyst for companies
Colocation data centres are no longer just important locally, as they are in Brussels, but have a global impact. They also lay the foundations for a whole ecosystem of companies that need a lot of computing power (which the data centre offers). These companies are grouped together near the data centres to benefit from relatively low latency, i.e. a very rapid response. The proximity of these applications to the data centres is therefore essential for their performance.
Setting up a data centre in Brussels attracts investors from outside the region, thanks to the image it represents. ‘Internationally, the ‘Brussels’ brand is better known than the ‘Belgium’ brand,’ points out Marc Decorte. For him, it's a strategic location both for companies looking to expand internationally and for those who want to use this data centre. However, we had to find a site large enough to allow us to build it. That's how Marc suggested the project to Citydev.brussels, which immediately understood the value of carrying out a plan of this scale for the Brussels Region.
Construction of the data centre is scheduled for completion by 2025.
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