Irish owned Echelon Data Centres has agreed a new debt finance deal with affiliates of Starwood Capital Group with an initial value of some €855m.
The company said the funding will facilitate the construction and completion of data centre facilities on Echelon's four Irish sites - DUB 10 and DUB40 in Dublin at Clondalkin and Grange Castle and DUB20 and DUB30 in Arklow, Co Wicklow.
Launched in 2019, Echelon Data Centres now has six sites across Ireland and the UK with a total potential capacity of up to 500MW.
Its sites in Ireland will have a combine capacity of around 400MW and will create more than 2,000 jobs in construction and full-time operational roles.
In the UK, Echelon's LCY10 site in London's Docklands is ready for occupation and LCY20, a 30MW facility located 20 miles from central London, is also the subject of a funding agreement with affiliates of Starwood Capital Group.
Niall Molloy, CEO of Echelon Data Centres, said the new finance deal signalled the next phase of the Echelon project in Ireland and will enable the delivery of much-needed, large-scale data centre infrastructure to meet the challenge and opportunity presented by the global need for data and data management.
"Data centres are essential infrastructure - now, post-pandemic, more than ever," Mr Molloy said.
"If we are to continue to benefit from low-cost, reliable and time-saving tech such as Zoom and Teams, if we're to enjoy the speed of 5G, if we are to stream on-demand and if we are to look forward to the future of AI and the IoT, then increasing data centre capacity is a given," he added.
