Blog
17.11.2021

The UN’s recent Climate Change Conference (COP26) has sparked a new sense of urgency amongst corporations to address the climate crisis, with 60 of the FTSE100 pledging to stop their contributions to climate change by 2050.

The corporate sector’s eagerness to show that they mean business when it comes to sustainability has also brought a renewed focus on sustainable data centres, and is one of the reasons these are exciting times for the digital infrastructure industry as a whole, and Verne Global in particular. 

Acquisition by Digital 9 Infrastructure

This September, Verne Global, a data center operator leading the way for sustainability, was acquired by Triple Point’s Digital 9 Infrastructure, an investment trust focused on providing resilient and sustainable digital infrastructure. In fact, D9 takes its name from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 9 – building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and fostering innovation. D9’s ethos harmonises perfectly with Verne Global’s core values as a world-leading, sustainability-focused data center. 

Robust growth in new and existing customers

As the world’s digital needs surged during the pandemic, companies across sectors looked for more sustainable technology options. In the past year alone, we’ve taken on new customers like Wirth Research, an engineering, design technology and advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) consultancy, which recently relocated its supercomputer to Verne Global’s data center campus, massively reducing its carbon footprint. 

Likewise, Peptone chose to install its supercomputer at Verne Global for greater sustainability and operational resilience. Peptone’s AI-driven protein engineering system identifies non-obvious protein variants that can be used to create vaccines – like COVID vaccines – and bring protein-based drugs to market faster. In Verne Global’s NVIDIA-optimised environment, Peptone is able to collaborate with NVIDIA to scale its compute to meet increasing demand from the protein therapeutics market.

Not only are we signing new customers, we’re also seeing at least 30% growth of existing customers per annum. In line with the growing demand for Verne Global’s sustainable high intensity compute solutions, we just announced this week that we’re expanding our 40-acre data center campus by a further 10MW of constructed power capacity. D9 will be funding the $50m expansion of our enterprise-class data center space. 

Hiring to support growth

As part of Verne Global’s continued growth, we’re also expanding our team with the strategic hire of James Chenery as Sales Director of Finance. The financial services industry’s demand for high performance, secure and sustainable data centers is greater than ever, and James has extensive knowledge of, and experience in, financial services. 

James’s background in the finance industry spans 20 years, in areas ranging from capital markets solutions and insurance, to payments and digital banking. He’s also held diverse roles in product, project and content management, as well as sales and business development. James founded Foxbase Consulting to advise clients on commercial strategy and special projects related to data centre strategy, and spent seven years at Interxion, where he managed its global financial services portfolio of accounts.

Prior to that, he spent twelve years at Thomson Reuters as a business development manager in its enterprise solutions division. Given the breadth and depth of James’s experience, he is perfectly positioned to help drive new business opportunities and support Verne Global’s continued growth.

Data centers are the bedrock of an increasingly digital world, and as more and more companies work to decarbonise their digital infrastructure, Verne Global’s sustainable, high performance and high intensity compute solutions will continue to be in great demand. As we continue to expand, build our team and acquire new partners and customers, the future looks bright – and sustainable.