SWITCH DATACENTERS industry are becoming increasingly alienated from – and therefore mistrusting of – it .
“ We have totally forgotten that we have to actually adapt our language to the language of the public and , when using scarce resources like land , power etc , give something back to the public ,” Van Essen explains . “ I also think a lot went wrong there , specifically , after a lot of foreign capital came to Amsterdam and adopted a one-size-fits-all push out of their US headquarters .”
For many global enterprises , Van Essen says a ‘ copy-paste ’ approach across all their new locations is common . However , this can be a serious hindrance to efficiency , and be highly detrimental to a brand reputation and a reason for slow innovation .
“ This optimisation game – data centre 1.0 , as I call it – was very technologyoriented and not at all society-aware .
“Amsterdam was one of the first cities that started to block the growth of data centres because , actually , they were consuming too much space and power ”
EDGAR VAN ESSEN MANAGING DIRECTOR , SWITCH DATACENTERS
That is actually what caused a lot of frustration in Amsterdam with both policymakers and the public , and it is now also becoming a broader European topic .”
“ Amsterdam was one of the first cities that started to block the growth of data centres because , actually , they were consuming too much space and power , which were meant for other things . In the end , the industry was very much the root cause of creating this block , and you see the same happening now in Frankfurt , and even in London and Dublin .”
Unexpectedly , Van Essen says that because Amsterdam has always been leading this trend towards high sustainability demands , that has proven to be a major advantage of developing solutions there .
“ Once you have a working solution in Amsterdam , the chance that you can copypaste it into Frankfurt , Dublin , and the others is pretty high . If you start the other way around – develop something in London and then try to get into Amsterdam – the likelihood that you will fail is pretty big ,” Van Essen asserts .
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