Iceland's Steam Creates Cleaner Future for Cloud Computing (The Australian)
A new venture led by Verne Global, a British company set up by veterans of the American data centre industry, will create the world's first data center powered entirely by geothermal and hydro-electric energy.
It is hoped that it could be a trend-setter for the industry and for Iceland. The likes of Facebook, Google and Yahoo! have all investigated the country in the past but have been put off by the lack of connectivity.
However, sub-sea cables have been installed to solve that issue and, according to Iceland's Foreign Minister Ossur Skarpheoinsson: "This is the beginning of a new chapter of the industrial life of Iceland. When something is new, you need someone to go first. Verne is a pioneer. It is an icebreaker."
The greenest part of the global internet is housed in a warehouse nestled in a former NATO site in Keflavik, close to Iceland's international airport. Its neon-lit corridors and frowning security guards could grace any such building around the world used to accomodate racks of servers.
But its secret lies in its revolutionary location on the most stable part of the volcanic island. Air pumped through hundreds of floor vents keeps the racks of servers at a cool, stable temperature - crucial for equipment that generates huge amounts of heat and otherwise could melt.
That cold Icelandic air, pumped in from outside, also makes Verne's facility a lot cheaper to run. Over half of the running costs of a data centre come in the form of an electricity bill. Traditionally such a site has used the same amount of power as a city the size of Leicester. This building is close to a geothermal power station that generates energy from the super-heated ground beneath and uses the same grid that serves the airport, about 30 miles from Reykjavik.
The project - driven by the insatiable rise of cloud computing and the data centres needed to serve it - has a strong British background. In addition to Verne, it is backed by the Wellcome Trust and by Colt, a London-based international data centre company whose modular design was used to construct the equipment in Newcastle before it was shipped to Iceland.
Verne hopes that the data centre's impeccable green credentials will appeal to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Jeff Monroe, its chief executive, said that many were still fuelling their data centre facilities with coal. "People are bolting on band aids on to existing infrastructure. Companies are looking at these dirty carbon-unfriendly areas - but for us, Iceland is a cool place!"
The economic impact of Verne's facilities for Icelandic business could be substantial. Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the chief executive CCP Games, said that the data centre would support the expansion of its successful EVE online game onto the PlayStation network.
Gunnar Gudjonsson, chief executive of the IT services company Opin Kerfi, another of Verne's partners, said that the facility could help to restore Iceland's reputation after the banking crisis that began in 2008 and brought down the country's three big commercial banks Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing.
"Everyone looks at Iceland and thinks it will be tough, but it is an enabler to get us out of the quagmire," Mr Gudjonsson said. "Verne's investment is one piece of the puzzle that will help us regain the trust we need in the international market.
"We will never forget what happened with the banks. But we have to learn and establish the trust again."
