Lamda Hellix, Digital Realty’s Greek subsidiary, has announced plans to build its first data center in Crete.
The new data center, to be located in Heraklion, will be the island’s first carrier-neutral facility, and is expected to offer up to 6.5MW of capacity.
The first phase is scheduled for completion in 2025.
Apostolos Kakkos, Chairman & CEO, Lamda Hellix said: “Our expansion into Crete has been designed in close collaboration with our subsea cable partners, and is expected to meet the demand for a carrier-neutral data center provider on the island.”
“The Heraklion facility will serve as an interconnection point for intercontinental and regional subsea cables, redistributing content to Greece, Turkey, Northern Africa, and Central Eastern Europe, as well as the Balkans,” he added. “It’s an important part of Digital Realty’s integrated Mediterranean strategy, alongside our existing hubs in Marseille and Athens, and hubs under development in Barcelona and Israel.”
Crete has several landing points on the island, and is currently or due to be connected to up to nine cables in the coming years. Greek telcos Lancom and Grid Telecom have both announced plans for cable landing stations in Crete this year.
Lamda Hellix was founded in 2002 and was acquired by Digital Realty’s Interxion in 2020. Originally built as a cable landing station, its first facility, Athens-1, opened in 2003 and was the first data center to gain a LEED v4 Gold badge.
It opened Athens-2 in 2016, after weathering the Greek debt crisis. Its existing Athens campus comprises two carrier-neutral data centers totaling 22MW of capacity. It broke ground on a third facility in the city last year.
