Why Pulsant is Expanding its UK Data Centre Portfolio
The deal sees Pulsant, a leading edge infrastructure provider in the UK, acquiring two data centres from European technology solutions and services provider SCC.
The SCC data centres are in Birmingham and Fareham and hope to ensure greater opportunities of growth and long-term stability for Pulsant. Likewise, the acquisition also aims to strengthen Pulsant’s unique edge infrastructure, platformEDGE, marking the next phase in its geographical expansion.
Pulsant is excited to grow its network of 12 data centres across the UK, with the company’s CEO Rob Coupland saying: “With the addition of two new data centres, we’ve expanded our UK coverage, strengthening our presence near key economic hubs that have traditionally been underserved in terms of digital infrastructure – particularly Birmingham, the UK’s second city.
“This will enable more businesses to benefit from Pulsant’s unique network of data centres and platformEDGE to reach new markets and grow their organisations. We’re excited to welcome and support the high-quality client base transitioning to Pulsant and look forward to fostering their continued growth.”
Boosting data centre power capacity across the UK
Under the terms of the agreement, SCC will provide Pulsant with its two data centre sites and transfer its high-quality colocation-only clients. This hopes to ensure long-term stability and stronger development for clients, team members and the facilities themselves.
Additionally, both companies will form a new strategic partnership to provide critical colocation services across the UK. This includes access to Pulsant’s national network of data centres for all SCC clients.
Such developments come in the wake of the UK government classifying data centres as critical national infrastructure (CNI). Therefore, the country is in need of colocation services to make its data centres more reliable and secure – which in turn could stand to benefit the UK’s digital economy.
Already this year, the government is eager to roll out plans to support faster development of critical infrastructure, as it seeks to become a global leader in AI.
As far as Pulsant’s new data centre sites are concerned, the company hopes they will be a strong addition to its existing data centre network. The Cole Valley data centre, based in Birmingham, benefits from being in a central location in the UK and has proximity to a city of great economic importance. Its power capacity is around 2 MW, but has potential to expand.
Meanwhile, the data centre in Fareham is a modern carrier-neutral facility with a mix of exceptional corporate and service provider colocation customers. It has a slightly higher power capacity of 3 MW – but both sites offer 25,000 square metres of data centre white space.
Driving connectivity innovation
Pulsant enables regional businesses and service providers to leverage the power of edge computing to improve application performance and user experience, reach new markets, and build innovative use cases.
Its platformEDGE offering is designed to enable businesses to scale IT workloads in line with their ambitions, both locally and nationally, while ensuring continuous availability of data and applications through diverse connectivity options.
- platformEDGE infrastructure connects 12 strategically located data centres through a low-latency network fabric, providing access to cloud, connectivity and compute services across the UK and beyond
Additionally, Pulsant has a strong history of acquiring and integrating regional data centres to expand its coverage and capabilities. With this in mind, the SCC investment will further strengthen its presence in the UK market.
Rob comments: “SCC has an outstanding reputation, and we’re delighted to partner with them to support clients with their future colocation requirements. We are also excited to welcome the new team members, working together to deliver high availability services.”
SCC’s role within the acquisition is to help its customers manage a range of hybrid workloads for optimum cost and performance remains a core value proposition and a driver of growth.
James Rigby, Co-CEO of SCC, adds: “SCC has been carefully reviewing options for the future of our data centres for some time. A clear priority was to find a specialist partner that will continue to invest in and operate these facilities for the long-term and with whom we can build a strategic relationship for the provision of these services to our clients.
“Ensuring continuity for our customers, opportunities for our people, and a future-proofed infrastructure was critical in our decision. Pulsant’s expertise and commitment to growing its UK data centre footprint made them the ideal choice, and we look forward to working closely with Pulsant during this transition.”
He adds: “We are delighted that this transaction further allows us to invest in our managed service hybrid offerings and to create a new and valued partnership with Pulsant for critical co-location services.”
Data centre engineers and operational team members from both locations will be transferred to Pulsant on completion of the deal, which is expected sometime in April 2025.
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