Vodafone and DAMAC: Advancing the Turkish Data Centre Market
The Eastern Mediterranean, much like the rest of the world, is experiencing unprecedented high demand for data centres.
As a result, Vodafone is partnering with EDGNEX Data Centres, a data centre firm by Dubai property company DAMAC, to build a new data centre in Izmir, Türkiye (Turkey). Izmir is one of the largest and oldest cities in the country, making it an ideal location to meet rising data centre demand, according to Aqil Ali, Vice Chairman of EDGNEX by DAMAC.
The new site is part of an estimated US$100m investment and will have a capacity of six megawatts (MW), with an expected completion date sometime in 2025.
Data centre construction: Investing in reliability
Vodafone’s partnership with EDGNEX aims to develop data centre facilities in and across Turkey, in addition to international markets. This is part of the company’s plans to exponentially grow its investments into data centres, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, mobile private network and the Internet of Things (IoT) over the next five years.
The company has already been making moves in 2024 to help accelerate digital transformation and data centre efficiencies at a global scale. In January 2024, Vodafone signed a 10 year strategic partnership with Microsoft to bring generative AI (Gen AI), digital services and the cloud to more than 300 million businesses and consumers across Europe and Africa.
This is part of the company’s plan to completely overhaul its global data centre strategy, announcing a billion-dollar investment into customer-focused AI services in particular. Vodafone currently operates five data centres in Turkey alone - two in Istanbul and one each in Izmir, Ankara and Adana.
With the cloud computing market projected to expand to hit US$947.3bn by 2025, Vodafone is keen to involve Turkey in the rising economy. Engin Aksoy, CEO of Vodafone Türkiye, says: “It remains crucial to invest in reliable and high-capacity data centres for cloud computing.
“Our goal through this strategic partnership [with DAMAC] is to develop data centre facilities in both Turkey and international markets. The data centre will be a major milestone in our technology investments. Vodafone will continue to leverage its global experience and local capabilities to contribute to the sustainable growth of our country.”
He adds: “We believe that Turkey should take part in this rising economy. It remains crucial to invest in reliable and high-capacity data centres for cloud computing.”
Keeping growth sustainable
According to Data Center Dynamics, none of the major US cloud providers currently have regions in Turkey, as the country’s data centre market is currently fairly small. Data centre companies that are currently operating there are the likes of Equinix and Telehouse.
In order to grow in a sustainable way, Vodafone and DAMAC’s partnership states that the new data centre will incorporate the latest technology to meet Tier 3 emission standards. As part of this, both companies are guaranteeing 99.982% uptime, full redundancy and fault tolerance, in addition to powering the site with green energy sources.
The site’s infrastructure will consist of a reliable cooling system, computing systems and a technology centre that can be maintained while operating. As a result, the companies hope that it will serve as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the region by connecting to Europe via terrestrial and submarine cables.
With the need for data centres continuing to grow exponentially worldwide, it is vital for operators to ensure that they balance growth with sustainability. Through these developments, the new site hopes to be a vital hub for OTT and hyperscaler segments, with EDGNEX hoping for future expansions.
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