Digital Realty Trust and CenturyLink-owned Savvis announced that their joint venture property in Hong Kong has been awarded Uptime Institute’s Tier III Certification of Design Documents — the first such certfication for a Hong Kong data center.

Located in Tseung Kwan-O Industrial Estate in New Territories, approximately 12 miles from downtown Hong Kong, the data center is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Tan Teng Cheong, country manager, Hong Kong and Singapore, at Savvis, said, “When this project is completed, businesses will have additional access in Asia to secure and reliable data center infrastructure from Savvis to support their mission-critical needs.

Kris Kumar, senior VP and head of the Asia Pacific region for Digital, said, “Customers can move in and immediately enjoy a facility that is designed to operate at 99.999% uptime, has excellent connectivity and uses international-standard security systems.”

The facility is being built using Digital's Turn-Key FlexSM design and its POD architecture. The solution takes a modular approach to delivering data center space.

Each Turn-Key Flex facility comes fully commissioned with its own dedicated electrical and mechanical infrastructure.

Uptime Institute Tier Certification is performed in two phases: Design Certification to ensure that the underlying solution is Tier compliant, followed by Facility Certification, which is an on-site inspection and verification.

The Hong Kong facility is one of 20 new Digital Realty data center projects around the world the company plans to have certified by Uptime. Five newly built Turn-Key Flex facilities have received Tier III Design certification to datge.

Three have been awarded Tier III Facility certification, including two projects in Australia and one in the US. Hong Kong is scheduled to complete the process and receive facility certification later this year.