Leeds welcomes arrival of '˜Digital Harbour'

Data firm aql is preparing to launch a new data centre which it says will make Leeds a centre for safe and reliable cloud computing solutions to businesses and organisations across the country.

aql’s founder and chief executive Dr Adam Beaumont hailed the new Virtual Harbour platform as a “milestone moment for the tech industry in the region” which would provide cloud infrastructure services to businesses and organisations in the Leeds City region and beyond.

Dr Beaumont said: “As a datacentre operator, we have to concentrate on delivering a solid, connected datacentre platform to our clients.

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“Leeds and aql’s datacentres are a major high-capacity node for the UK internet, and a point where all networks meet.

“For businesses wanting to store data securely at rest, or move it about at a rate of terabits per second, we are the right choice.”

Richard May, co-founder of Virtual Harbour said: “Virtual Harbour represents a great new opportunity to provide Eco friendly cloud services to the public sector.”

The new datacentres have been which support the service built for low-carbon, high performance.

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Dr Beaumont said: “When I used to be a lecturer at Leeds University in the mid-1990s – my specialist subject was thermodynamics, the study of the flow of heat and energy.

“Our datacentres are designed to export heat into the new district heating scheme which is being planned in Leeds city centre.

“This will allow the megawatts of excess heat created from data processing, to be donated to the city to help address fuel poverty.

“We have thought very carefully about how we conserve energy and deal with efficiency and waste.”

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