Interxion, a Digital Reality company announced the opening of the first phase of MRS3, its third data center in Marseille, France. The new campus sits at the heart of the global subsea cable industry, with 14 cables currently landing in Marseille and five to 10 additional cables expected to land within the next five years.
Marseille serves as the digital nexus connecting 4.5 billion cloud and digital media users across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
“With over 150 network service providers, Interxion’s Marseille campus has established itself as one of the world’s leading digital hubs for intercontinental data traffic,” said David Ruberg, Chief Executive Officer of Interxion, a Digital Realty company. “The opening of MRS3 will offer new and existing customers expanded access to the vibrant community in Marseille, including numerous connectivity providers, digital media and cloud segments along with local as well as global enterprises.”
This state-of-the-art, highly connected data center is located in a former World War II submarine base known as Martha. Abandoned for decades, this unusual building was built to be virtually indestructible – its specifications include terraced reinforced concrete to a thickness of 5.5 metres, the ability to withstand 10-tonne bombs, a length of 250 metres and a 12-metre high surrounding wall.
The result is an architecturally unique structure that houses a 16.5-megawatt data center and approximately 7,100 square metres of fully equipped IT space to be delivered in three stages. This first phase, comprising approximately 2,300 square metres, will be followed by two additional phases scheduled for delivery during 2021.
“Our Marseille campus is well known for its national and international community of leading global digital media and cloud services providers, with a growing presence from enterprise customers seeking to evolve their hybrid cloud infrastructures in a secure and highly connected environment,” explained Fabrice Coquio, Interxion France Managing Director.
“Given the scale of the campus, this project has been a formidable undertaking, transforming the site into a best-in-class, modern data center purpose-built to provide our customers with the digital infrastructure requirements to scale at the speed and bandwidth they need,” Coquio concluded.
