French hosting company OVH has acquired a data center in Germany, and is planning to build two more.

The facility in Limburg, Hesse, will host around 45,000 servers once fully populated, and open in April 2017.

“We are confident that, in 2017, the demand for digital infrastructures will exceed the current supply,” said Béla Waldhauser, leader of the Datacenter Expert Group at ECO – Association of the German Internet Industry.

Hosting und colocation

OVH was founded by Octave Klaba in 1999. Today, the company runs 17 data centers, hosts more than a million websites and supports more than 700,000 customers.

OVH’s first data center in Germany is located in Limburg, less than 100 km (or 1 millisecond) from Frankfurt – one of Europe’s most active colocation markets. Through Frankfurt, it will enjoy direct connections to Brussels, Strasbourg, and Zurich, and later Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Milan.

The 4,000 square meter facility is set inside a former industrial building with an on-site electrical substation. It will initially employ six technicians, and expand the number of staff in line with demand.

“Both our customers and prospects are increasingly asking for a data center located in Germany. There are many reasons for this: Germany’s economic situation is good. Furthermore, the country has strict rules on confidentiality and a highly reliable electricity grid. Thus, the opening of this first data center is a major step in the expansion strategy of OVH, the only global cloud provider that is not American, and therefore not subject to the Patriot Act,” said Peter Hoehn, director of OVH’s German subsidiary.