IONOS, Europe’s largest cloud hosting services provider, said its newest data centre facility in the Midlands, UK, is due to be opened in 2022.

In an investment estimated to be in the line of £20 million (US$27.47 million), the facility-based at Worcester Six Business Park, is a 43,708 sq ft unit for IONOS, and Fasthosts, its subsidiary UK brand.

The rea is split into 30,729 sq ft for data centre usage and 12,978 sq ft of ancillary offices.

Sab Knight, Head of Cloud Sales at IONOS, said: “The new Worcester site is crucial for IONOS’s growth in the UK and shows our commitment to further investment in infrastructure and jobs.

“We are very happy that the building was completed in time and have already started the technical fit-out of the data centre in what will be the most modern and environmental-friendly IONOS data centre to date. The Worcester Six site will start operation in the first half of 2022 and will host one of the most advanced cloud platforms in Europe.”

The company said the data centre has been built to include several sustainable and energy-efficient features, including solar photovoltaic panels that cover the entire roof and Tata Steel’s Confidex Sustain wall and roof cladding, which creates a carbon-neutral building envelope.

The photovoltaic panels should cover 10% of the energy use at the site, the operator said in a statement.

Gerard Ludlow, Director at Stoford, a company focused in occupier led pre-let commercial property developments in the UK, added: “We have made superb progress on this data centre for IONOS and are pleased to announce we have achieved practical completion.

“We are proud to have delivered Wychavon’s first data centre for IONOS and the environmentally friendly facilities are testament to the company’s quest for sustainability, something that we at Stoford are also keen to pursue across all of our sites.”

In the past three years, Worcester Six has welcomed Marmon Food and Beverage Equipment, Siemens, Spire Healthcare, Kimal and Kohler Mira. Once fully developed, the business park will provide 1.5 million sq ft of accommodation.

Councillor Richard Morris, Wychavon District Council Deputy Leader and Executive Board Member for Economic Growth and Tourism, said: “I’m delighted with this investment, which delivers not only high-quality jobs and a sustainable building but essential IT infrastructure businesses need to develop and expand.

“It is a sign of the confidence investors have, not only in our growing local economy but in Worcester Six Business Park itself as Worcestershire’s premier gamechanger site, offering a broad range of employment opportunities for residents.”

IONOS was established in 1988 and manages today more than eight million customer contracts and hosting more than 12 million domains in its regional data centres around the globe in Great Britain, Germany, the United States and Spain.

The company uses mostly colocation operators for its operations including VIRTUS Data Centres (London), Equinix (Berlin), United Internet AG (Frankfurt am Main), Switch Communications Data Center (Las Vegas), Anexio, Inc., Data Center NJ1 (New Jersey), and Arsys Internet S.L.U. (Logroño).