During a joint symbolic groundbreaking ceremony, the construction work for a new data center in Ulm's Science Park III officially started. Ulm's Lord Mayor, Mr. Gunter Czisch, and the Managing Director of SWU Stadtwerke Ulm/Neu-Ulm, Mr. Klaus Eder, as well as the Head of Major Projects of the Data Center Group, Mr. Christian Tigges, together with the architect of the project, Mr. Adrian Hochstrasser, gave the joint starting signal.
DCG is executing the project as general contractor. The implementation of the project is controlled by Tim Kohlhaas as project manager and Jörg Münker as site manager on site, so that a highly available colocation data center for companies from the region can be created on a building area of a good 1430 square meters by January 2025. The data center is located in the immediate vicinity of the University of Ulm, research institutions, technology companies and the "Campus for Artificial Intelligence" (KICU), which is also under construction, and complements an existing data center. Fiber-optic connections to the major Internet nodes in Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main ensure sufficient bandwidths and access and expand SWU TeleNet's range of services and supplies. As the operator of the data center, their employees are responsible for the smooth operation of the approx. 150 racks seven days a week and around the clock.
Sustainably safe
The project was planned according to the strictest guidelines regarding location, availability, security and sustainability. In addition to video-monitored access, which can only be entered by authorized persons, fine-tuned monitoring and a control center manned 365 days a year ensure early alerting in the event of malfunctions or emergencies.
In order to meet the climate-neutral operation of data centers by 2027, as required by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, the focus was on sustainability. Thus, the entire technology of the data center is designed to protect the environment and conserve resources. The electricity required is supplied exclusively by green power generated in-house by the waterworks and by an on-site photovoltaic system. In addition, the fail-safe cooling systems are designed in such a way that not only low outside temperatures are used optimally, but also waste heat can be discharged and used elsewhere.
"The data center serves as a prime example of sustainable and highly available data centers. With an innovative security concept, as well as a sustainable climate and waste heat solution, the Data Center in Ulm has an overall package that is second to none. The Data Center Group is proud to be able to make its contribution to sustainable digitization in Ulm as a general contractor," says Christian Tigges, Head of Major Projects at the Data Center Group.
