UK telecoms and IT services provider Colt is well on its way toward building the world’s first zero-emissions data center, in all of four months. Being built for data center developer Verne Global, the plant will be built on a former NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland, where geothermal and hydroelectric power will supply all the electricity needed to power the 500-square meter data center’s servers and ambient cold air used to cool them.
Colt has manufactured the data center’s 37 modules in the UK and will begin shipping them to Verne Global’s data center campus in Keflavik in early October, according to a press release.
Sitting atop part of the Atlantic Ocean’s Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Iceland is the only country in the world that generates all its electrical power from clean, renewable sources — geothermal and hydropower. Its geographic location affords the country with access to plentiful geothermal and hydropower resources, as well as a cold climate that make it an ideal location for data centers. Its remote location is a downside, but undersea cables provide telecoms links between the island nation and the European and North American continents.