Overview
Sebastien Bonneau, corporate and data centres partner at McDermott Will & Emery, commented:
“Recent political changes in the UK seem to have had no impact on the desire of the country to remain attractive to foreign investors and operators contributing to making Britain a leading digital market.
The large number of data centre projects around London – arguably, one of the largest DC markets in Europe alongside Frankfurt – was suffering like all of the other mature DC markets in Europe (the FLAP-D) from a lack of available power among other structural issues. But the signal given by these four operators is very positive and engaging: they believe in the ability of the British market to deliver land, power and connectivity to absorb the groundswell demand for digitalization services, driven notably by the AI hype, and the democratisation of the access to cloud services.
One should also remember that the UK is no longer part of the EU, and in addition to its strategic position next door to Continental Europe, it has a role to play in developing its own economic and social attractiveness. The recent examples prove that some operators believe in the ability of the country to deliver on that promise.”
