Virtus breaks ground on a data centre campus in Berlin
UK-based data centre operator, Virtus, has broken ground on a new campus in Berlin, Germany. Virtus is a part of Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean state-owned investment firm.
Initially mentioned in May 2023, the new campus is situated in the Marienpark business park. The campus will feature four buildings, dubbed Berlin 1-4, totalling 19,000sqm of technical space. It will have an IT load capacity of 57.6 MW upon completion.
The new campus aims to serve hyperscale, government and enterprise customers with a wide range of hosting and cloud services. Additionally, the facility will be connected to a waste heat distribution system, promoting sustainability.
Michael Dada, the managing director of Germany at Virtus, highlighted the strategic importance of Berlin for the company.
'We are investing in digital infrastructure while also creating a sustainable foundation for the future viability of the economy and society," he added.
Franziska Giffey, Mayor of Berlin and Senator for Economic Affairs, Energy and Business, said: 'The new Virtus data centre in Marienpark is becoming an innovative digital backbone for cloud, AI, and high-performance applications in Berlin.'
The Marienpark campus is part of Virtus' wider European expansion plans, aiming to meet the increasing demand for data centres across the continent. In 2023, it also announced a €3bn ($3.4bn) mega campus in Wustermark, Germany.
"Virtus breaks ground on a data centre campus in Berlin" was originally created and published by Investment Monitor, a GlobalData owned brand.
The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Getting the construction industry ‘Sublime ready' with or without the federal government
HOLYOKE — With contractors — including Holyoke-based DOC and its supplier Chicopee Concrete — interested in using Sublime Systems' cement, the Massachusetts-born company wants to move up the 'gold shovel' groundbreaking for the $150-million plant it plans on Water Street. 'Our company is doing everything we can to accelerate our time to market to give builders everything they are asking for,' said Joe Hicken, senior vice president at Sublime. This is despite the Donald Trump administration's decision to yank an $87 million Department of Energy grant. It's money Hicken says Sublime has not given up on despite Christopher Wright, U.S. secretary of energy, saying that Sublime was part of a $3.7 billion raft of grants approved under President Joe Biden were not furthering American interests. Sublime always expressed plans to start production in 2027 or 2028. It expects to employ 70 to 90 people in addition to the 250-or-so who will work in construction The supply chain partners announced last week include DOC along with Turner Construction Company, STO Building Group, DPR Construction, Suffolk, Holder Construction, Consigli Construction Co. Inc., Samet Corp. and Methuen Construction have signed on to be part of Sublime's distribution network. 'They are getting the market Sublime ready to get this product out and deploy it at scale,' Hicken said. 'It sends the message, if you are a courthouse builder or a hospital builder, you can come to Sublime systems.' DOC, formerly known as Daniel O'Connell Sons, is a large-scale contractor of major public works. Company representatives visited Sublime's small-scale laboratory cement plant over the past few months with concrete supplier Chicopee Concrete, Hicken said. Jit Kee Chin, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Suffolk, said what the supply chain companies are doing is obtaining for themselves a piece of the future production of the Holyoke plant. 'You have to line up the supply chain to actually take this product to market,' she said. 'But we've known Sublime Systems for a long time,' Suffolk is also making an unspecified equity investment in Sublime. There were announced rounds of fundraising which garnered $40 million and $75 million. Sublime retains, according to Hicken, $47 million in federal tax credits, $1.05 million in state tax credits and $351,000 in property tax incentives from the city. Sublime — through work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — developed a method of creating cement through an electrochemical process instead of using heat. The high temperatures needed in cement making mean it accounts for as much as 5% of worldwide manmade emissions of carbon dioxide. Most of the CO2 comes from the limestone instead of from the fuel burned to heat that limestone. There is already a small demonstration system set up and test pours, both indoor and outdoor. Chin said the results are good. It's chemically no different than standard cement, but is whiter and cleaner. '(Sublime's) vision is no less than to really impact one of the foundational materials for construction, with cement and subsequently concrete,' Chin said. Sublime already had a deal to sell 623,000 tons of cement products to Microsoft over six to nine years. The company also recently announced a program to encourage general contractors to use Sublime's cement. Even just the Microsoft deal will require a second, larger plant, Hicken said. Holyoke is the first commercial facility designed to make 30,000 tons a year. That's enough cement each year to make enough concrete to build 17 three-floor parking garages. While all this is happening, Hicken said the company is still working on getting that $87 million grant back. Sublime Systems benefited, Hicken said, from the meticulous process of securing a federal grant. Now the company needs to make its case again. 'We haven't met with anyone yet. We'd love an opportunity to sit down,' he said. Sublime aligns with Trump's goals of building American manufacturing and ending reliance on imported products. Canada and Mexico account for 27% of U.S. cement imports. 'Our sense is there is an opportunity to show up as an asset,' Hicken said. 'The next step is to sit down with a human being.' With a makeover, Uncle Sam rises again for East Longmeadow's 4th of July Bankruptcy protection ends for ESG Clean Energy, Holyoke generating plant linked to Scuderi engine Big Y plans changes to its Tower Square store Read the original article on MassLive. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The UK, Germany and Canada have slashed foreign aid this year, deepening damage done by US cuts, analysis shows
Western countries have slashed foreign aid budgets this year and reductions will steepen in 2026, with the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada cutting the most, according to a new analysis from the Center for Global Development (CGD). The aid cuts will mean 'significant losses' for many developing nations, according to the analysis from the DC-based think tank, shared exclusively with CNN. Ethiopia is projected to lose the most aid in nominal terms, with Jordan, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo also hit particularly hard. Smaller nations will also be hammered by the reduction in foreign aid, with Lesotho, Micronesia and Eswatini each losing around 50% of their aid. 'It's setting fire to the bold ambitions to solve poverty and transform developing countries,' Lee Crawfurd, one of the authors of the report, told CNN. 'It's some of the poorest, most fragile places in the world that are going to be hardest hit.' The analysis looked at projections of bilateral aid – money provided directly to another country rather than routed through multilateral organizations such as United Nations agencies or the World Bank – for 2025 and 2026. The US is projected to cut the most, with a projected 56% reduction compared to levels two years ago. The Trump administration's gutting of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year has already left a hole in many international aid budgets, and several other Western nations are following suit rather than filling the void. 'A big, big chunk of overall cuts in the next couple of years are going to be from the US pulling out, rather than other countries. But these other countries are making things worse,' said Crawfurd, a senior research fellow at the CGD. The UK aid cuts are estimated to represent a roughly 39% reduction compared to 2023 levels of spending. Meanwhile, Germany is cutting about 27%, Canada 25% and France 19% of their international aid budgets. The true level of aid cuts remains unclear, as the Trump administration's proposed budget and other government proposals are still making their way through legislatures. But some funding cuts are almost guaranteed. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced in February that his government would increase the UK's defense spending by cutting its aid budget to 0.3% of gross national income in 2027, its lowest level since 1999. Many organizations and aid workers have raised alarm about European governments pitting aid budgets against defense spending. 'Cutting the already lean aid budget is a false economy and will only increase division and amounts to a betrayal of the world's most vulnerable people,' said Halima Begum, head of Oxfam GB. 'It is a false dichotomy to pit international cooperation to tackle poverty against national security interests in order to avoid tax increases.' Crawfurd said that bilateral aid is a 'really small part of government budgets' and the money for defense or security could be found elsewhere. 'It's a choice… it's a political choice,' he added. The think tank wrote in its analysis that 'one striking takeaway is that some countries are projected to lose large amounts of ODA (official development assistance) simply because of who their main donors are – while others are projected to lose very little' – a game of chance, with losses not matching up to the recipient country's needs. Yemen, for example, is projected to experience a 19% fall in its bilateral funding compared to 2023, while its 'comparable' neighbor country Somalia is projected to lose about 39%. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also warned that multilateral aid cuts are threatening efforts to tackle 44 of the highest-priority, protracted humanitarian crises. As of April, only 11.9% of the funding for UN response plans had been covered. 'Every year, the UN has been helping more than 100 million people in the world as they go through the worst time of their lives in wars and disasters. But let's be clear: we won't reach the level of funding in 2025 that we've seen in previous years,' Anja Nitzsche, OCHA's chief of partnerships and resource mobilization told CNN in a statement. 'Vulnerable families are being left without food, clean water, healthcare, shelter or protection in places such as Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, Myanmar and Afghanistan.' The CGD is urging Western donors to reallocate aid to the poorest countries to try to 'ensure that resources are directed to populations in greatest need.' Western countries also need to improve coordination to mitigate further damage, especially as they are withdrawing from countries receiving aid, the think tank said. In some countries, the cuts will change who the largest donor is, which 'can lead to major shifts in what gets funded and how,' according to the CGD. For example, Portugal will likely overtake the US in aid to Angola, and Japan is projected to overtake France in Egypt. 'A new lead donor may not continue the same programs' or may take time to get up and running, according to the analysis. Giving a larger share of aid to multilateral organizations can also help improve international cooperation and cut down on duplication of aid efforts. 'Coordination is an ongoing challenge,' Crawfurd told CNN. 'The easiest way to do that is just to fund big multilateral funds like the World Bank.'

Business Insider
21 minutes ago
- Business Insider
3 takeaways from Jensen Huang's European charm offensive
Jensen Huang is the man of the moment on a massive mission: to strike AI infrastructure deals with Europe. The Nvidia CEO owned multiple rooms as he rubbed shoulders with world leaders at London Tech Week and VivaTech in Paris. Business Insider was there for his talks at both events. Here's what to know about the European tour of the man whose company is powering the AI boom. Nvidia is all in on 'sovereign AI' One phrase was top of mind for Huang this week: " sovereign AI." The term describes a country using its own AI infrastructure within its own borders, from data to hardware to the models themselves. The idea is to create technological self-reliance for AI, versus using data centers located in other countries or models developed by foreign companies. "Sovereign AI is an imperative — no company, industry, or nation can outsource its intelligence," said Huang while announcing a partnership with French startup Mistral to provide Nvidia chips for its homegrown AI infrastructure platform. It's not a new concept, nor the first time Huang has talked about it. But Huang mentioned it during every talk and Q&A in London and Paris, and announced deals with local cloud providers in the UK, Germany, France, and Italy. For Nvidia, sovereign AI is also an opportunity to sell more of its chips, particularly as China, as Huang said during last month's earnings call, is " effectively closed" to US chip firms because of export controls. "There's nothing wrong with renting an AI, it's no different from hiring a contractor into your company," said Huang on Wednesday during a VivaTech keynote, wearing his signature black leather jacket. "But you still need to have some ability to develop your own intelligence." Huang's 'rockstar' status isn't going anywhere Few business executives can steal the limelight from world leaders, but Huang is one of them. At London Tech Week, crowds arrived early to grab a spot for his fireside chat with the UK's prime minister, Keir Starmer. There wasn't an empty seat at Olympia's main stage as the Nvidia boss talked up the UK's AI potential. "I make this prediction — because of AI, every industry in the UK will be a tech industry," Huang said Monday to a captivated audience. Two days later, Huang was similarly praised for France's tech ecosystem. During an Nvidia GTC keynote during VivaTech, Huang was in his element showing off the innards of some of his company's latest server technology, interacting with robots, and bigging up the future of quantum computing. But he seemed just as at home alongside France's President Emanual Macron and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch during a fireside chat that same day, getting laughs from the audience and remaining the center of attention. Nvidia's share price may have had some bumps in February and March before recovering, but Huang's stock in the tech world seems just as high as when he signed MacBooks, chips, and even a woman's top at a Taiwan tech conference last year. Huang remains a resolute AI optimist AI's impact on jobs, particularly in white-collar roles like software development, has set alarm bells ringing for some tech leaders. Last month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, broke ranks to warn that AI could soon wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and governments were "sugarcoating" the threat. But Huang's messaging was consistent throughout his European tour: AI will make the world a better place, even if there's disruption. "AI is the greatest equalizer of people," he said during the press briefing. "If you have somebody that you wish just were a better person, tell them to use AI." It's an unsurprising stance for the CEO of a company whose $3.5 trillion market cap stems from its position as the most important provider of AI chips. Huang had particularly strong words for Amodei. "I pretty much disagree with almost everything he says," Huang said during a press briefing at VivaTech on Wednesday. " He thinks AI is so scary, but only they should do it." An Anthropic spokesperson disputed Huang's characterization of Amodei's stance to BI, saying that Amodei has "advocated for a national transparency standard for AI developers," including Anthropic, and that he stands by his concerns about AI's impact on jobs. It was clear in both Paris in London that Huang sees AI as an upskilling opportunity rather than a job destroyer. " Anybody can learn how to program an AI," Huang said at London Tech Week on Monday. "The new programming language is called human."