Digital Realty enlisted Richard Bruton TD, Irish minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation, for its groundbreaking ceremony at a 10-acre data center site at Profile Park, West Dublin.

The ceremony marked the start of construction of the first of up to eight 10,000 sq ft turn-key flex data center suites across four buildings on the campus site. These aim to support up to 2MW of IT load each, while the company will employ 150 construction workers on the project.

The four-building campus will total approximately 193,000 gross sq ft, with a total IT capacity of over 15MW.

Bernard Geoghegan, managing director of EMEA at Digital Realty, said Ireland is a “key market” for the strategic growth of its global customer base.

“We have over 34 MW of data center capacity in Dublin, more than 30 employees supporting our clients’ operations, and have invested close to €120m (US$165.22m) in our data center facilities on behalf of our clients,” Geoghegan said.

Richard Bruton TD said big data is a sector the government has identified in its action plan for jobs as offering “particular potential” in Ireland, and has put in place a series of measures to support growth in this area.

Gary Keogh, sales director of Digital Realty in Ireland, said Dublin has an “ideal climate” for deploying the company’s indirect air optimisation design, which aims to significantly improves clients’ data center's energy efficiency by lowering PUE (Power Utilisation Effectiveness) and therefore their total cost of occupancy.