Reflecting on 2021 - Neil Cresswell, CEO, VIRTUS

As we end 2021, with the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant, the world seems to be in a place which none of us as adults have been used to. The impact of these viruses should not be underestimated. However, the speed of the vaccine development in the last 18 months has been nothing short of extraordinary and is testament to the global collaboration of humans to do good.

I am computer scientist, not a medical scientist or a doctor so for me, like many of you, 2021 can be summed up with … “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”. If you were a child of the 1970’s like me, you will recognise those words from [arguably] one of the greatest films of all-time. In other words, it has been another challenging year for the world, and likewise for the global data centre industry. Here we are, at the end of two tough years, and Covid-19 is still disrupting the way we live and work and maybe even more. My thoughts and prayers are with anyone impacted by this indiscriminate virus.??

For a community approaching 500 people including operations and construction, VIRTUS has been fortunate to be less affected than others;?we have had some colleagues who have been ill, some seriously, and many of us have needed to isolate at some point over the last 24 months. And sadly, we know of colleagues at some of our customers and other companies who have passed away. We reflect on their lives too.

I would like to pay special tribute to the VIRTUS Epidemic Management Team, which was set up early in January 2020 to monitor the Covid status across our community. They worked tirelessly to publish clear and concise communication to customers and staff (sometimes daily) about necessary changes to policies and procedures.?We always erred on the side of caution, in most cases putting new controls in place and locking down, sometimes weeks or months before government advice.?

Amongst other things, this team had a morning check-in across all departments to see who might be ill, isolating or not available. Our team also worked with TechUK and the UK Government DCMS dept to ensure that data centre workers were declared essential workers. As well as concern for the wellbeing of our employees, the aim was to monitor and manage our shift teams so there was always cover and reserves to meet our number one deliverable of Safety, Security and 100% Availability.?I’m pleased to say this has been achieved again in 2021 and I thank this team for the great work they continue to do to maintain this.?

In this moment of reflection, I would like to congratulate our wonderful and supportive customers on VIRTUS’ collective success. The last 10 years have seen amazing growth in cloud and digital transformation with the London data centre market now close to 1GW having doubled every five years since 2010. The last two years have accelerated this growth even further and?VIRTUS has been a huge contributor. We now have a 200MW portfolio across 12 sites, justifying our position as the number one data centre provider in the UK.?

Although the world’s computing needs have grown exponentially in the last decade, data centre power usage has not increased at the same rate. In fact, energy used per compute unit has decreased because large hyper efficient data centres like ours are the most energy efficient way of delivering a compute. Innovations such as virtualisation and cloud continue to make modern computing more energy efficient in comparison to previous models. As an industry we have a responsibility to ensure that we use whatever energy, water and other natural resources - however efficient - in a sustainable way.?

At VIRTUS, we are an industry leader when it comes to renewables. We power all of our data centres with certified, fully renewable sources (solar, hydro and wind) and have done so since 2012. This means we are 100% carbon zero on power consumption for our entire data centre portfolio. VIRTUS secured and continues to operate Climate Change Agreements (CCA’s) for our 10 live sites prior to the scheme being closed. CCAs are voluntary agreements made between UK industry and the Environment Agency to reduce energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in support of the UK government’s plan for net zero. These agreements are supported by our renewable energy strategy. CCA’s require us to publish our performance in this area, and by using renewable energy in 2020 we saved over 45,000,000 tonnes of CO2, enough to fill Wembley Stadium five times over.

“Your life runs on an app on your phone” has never been truer than now. With data traffic forecast to grow to five times its current size over the next five years because of society’s demand for more data and faster, bigger networks, hundreds of new data centres costing hundreds of billions of dollars per year in data centre capex are needed globally. Thanks to new technologies in data centres such as more automation, facilities are becoming less labour intensive so capacity can be doubled whilst only needing 50 per cent more people.?Looking forward to the near future, VIRTUS will be adding 50MW of new capacity in the next two years. We are also looking to expand into new markets in the rest of Europe.?

Hopefully in 2022, life and work can return?to normal - even if it is a new normal.?Necessity is the mother of invention, and we have learned that through necessity over the last two years, businesses can survive and thrive. We have seen less commuting, more flexible working and less international travel, which should be good for people and good for the planet. I am excited that we will see some positive changes in a post COVID world.

Whatever you and your family are doing this holiday season, I hope you can enjoy it and that you all remain safe and well.

To find out more about VIRTUS visit our website.

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