Vantage Data Centers has announced the upcoming launch of its second London campus, LHR2, set to open at the end of September.
Situated in the Park Royal district, this 194,000-square-foot facility will provide 20 megawatts of IT capacity and represents a £250 million investment in the local economy. The new data centre coincides with the London Design Festival, which runs from September 13 to 21, and features a notable public art installation titled “11 Million Dots.” This six-story facade installation pays tribute to Park Royal’s industrial past while celebrating its transformation into a vibrant urban hub. Created through a collaboration with the Park Royal Design District and local artist Rafael El Baz, the artwork incorporates ambient noise and machinery sounds from the area, transforming them into binary code and waveforms that evoke microchips, maps, and cityscapes, turning the building into a cultural landmark.
The LHR2 campus emphasizes sustainability and energy efficiency, aligning with BREEAM Excellent standards. It incorporates features such as air and water source heat pumps and maintains a low power usage effectiveness (PUE). The site also meets Urban Greening Factor requirements and will connect to the district heating network to reuse waste heat, underscoring Vantage’s commitment to environmental responsibility.
Vantage’s President for EMEA, David Howson, highlighted the company’s rapid capacity expansion in London, noting that the new campus supports the growth of hyperscale customers leveraging cloud computing and AI technologies. He mentioned that the project aligns with the UK government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak referenced earlier this year. El Baz, the artist behind the facade installation, expressed enthusiasm about the project’s cultural significance, emphasizing how the artwork transforms the data centre into a community landmark by embedding local voices and sounds into its design. He praised Vantage for its openness to integrating infrastructure with social and cultural narratives, turning functional buildings into meaningful community symbols.
London hosts two Vantage campuses, with LHR1 in North Acton comprising two facilities totalling 430,000 square feet and offering 55MW of IT capacity when fully operational. The company’s Cardiff campus, CWL1, is among Europe’s largest data centres in South Wales. Once all three UK campuses are fully developed, Vantage will offer a combined 223MW of IT capacity across more than 2.6 million square feet, cementing its position as a major player in the UK’s data centre landscape.
For more information on Vantage’s expansion in the EMEA region, visit their website. Details about the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan are available through the UK government’s official portal. Vantage Data Centers continues to serve leading AI and cloud providers worldwide, delivering scalable, efficient digital infrastructure across North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, driven by a steadfast commitment to operational excellence and customer success.
