HSBC invests in new London data centre

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HSBC is building a new, custom data centre to support its entire European IT infrastructure, with the aim of completing construction by the end of this year.

The global banking and financial services firm's new centre, located on a development site in suburban London, will make use of the latest data centre power and cooling components.

HSBC will lease the facility through a long-term agreement with the site owners and contracted data centre specialist construction firm, Digital Realty Trust.

The companies said they had collaborated to develop specifications to support HSBC's security requirements and environmental goals, in addition to a wide range of other technical and business needs.

"Digital Realty Trust's expertise will be just as important now that construction is under way to ensure that the project goes according to plan, meets all of our technical needs and is completed on time and on budget," said Roy Adorni, HSBC's global head of data centre services.. "A project of this magnitude requires a high level of specialised expertise, which is why we put such an emphasis on selecting the right partner."

The proximity of data centres to the IT operations teams that look after them are increasingly a consideration for large corporations like HSBC, according to Mike Foust, Digital Realty's chief executive.

"They have so many applications to cope with in delivering services to customers as well as those handling their internal processes, new data centres offer them the ability to access new applications and extend old ones," he said.

A deal like this is fairly unusual given the rising cost of new data centre space around the world, according to Mike Thompson, business process management (BPM) practice director for analyst Butler Group.

"There is a theory now in the financial services market about keeping operational sites local, rather like we've seen happen with the promotion of UK-based call centres," he said.

"Maybe HSBC is also looking to focus on carbon efficiencies and foot-printing. The UK is a big proponent of that and other countries are perhaps less so concerned with green issues."

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