A UK investment company created earlier this year to invest in digital infrastructure assets has splurged £231m to acquire a sizeable data centre in Iceland on the site of a former NATO airfield and naval base.

The Verne Global site – which was established in 2010 and harnesses power from hydroelectric and "predictable" geothermal activity while using Iceland's chilly climate to keep things cool – is deemed to be highly efficient.

New owner Digital 9 Infrastructure (D9) believes there is plenty of scope to expand the operation at the 40-acre site to tap into demand for green digital infrastructure.

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In fact, D9 claims it is "one of the most efficient data centres in Europe and globally," making the Icelandic data centre a hotspot for high performance compute (HPC) services.

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The deal is the first data centre acquisition made by D9 following its IPO earlier this year when it [3]snapped up Aqua Comms , a Dublin-based company that operates a subsea transatlantic fibre cable linking Europe and the US.

[4]HPE bags $160m to build 550-PFLOPS super for Europe out of tomorrow's AMD Epyc processors, graphics chips

[5]A Song of Iceland Fire: Scotland's Skyrora launches Skylark Micro rocket from volcanic viking outpost

[6]Iceland starts planning for new undersea internet cable to Europe

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When D9 kickstarted its operation earlier this year, it said it planned to invest in a range of digital infrastructure assets including subsea fibre, data centres, terrestrial fibre, tower infrastructure, and small cell networks.

The firm is already eyeing up a further six data centre investments thought to be worth around £200m, including what it describes as a "premier metro data centre based in the UK" which could get the green light later this autumn.

No one from the investment outfit was available for comment at the time of writing, but in a statement the firm highlighted the importance of data centres and other digital infrastructure that meet "key decarbonisation goals." ®

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[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YTeMv54u-tpNtzOyZnfypgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[3] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/dublin-based-operator-of-transatlantic-fibre-optic-cable-to-be-sold-1.4518184?mode=amp

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/22/hpe_amd_supercomputer/

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/skyrora_skylark_micro/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/30/iceland_new_undersea_cable_plans/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/28/google_to_spend_another_600m_on_bit_barns_in_finland/

[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/