The ACS Group is evolving. It is only necessary to look at the latest movements of the company to perceive the transformation. This week, its subsidiary Hochtief ratified its alliance with the Palladio fund to build its first data center in Germany. The Spanish company is no longer a typical construction company and is determined to lead new generation projects in the field of infrastructure. Its CEO, Juan Santamaría, confirmed this in the last presentation of results. The hallmarks of the Spanish multinational are clear: building a better future through digitization, innovation and sustainability.
In this sense, Santamaría was clear, highlighting the four sectors that were going to acquire the most weight in the ACS strategy: sustainable mobility, energy transition, biopharmaceuticals and digitization. The Data Processing Centers sector has become a great business opportunity, since, as collected by the data from the specialized consulting firm Synergy Research Group, technology companies are investing large sums of money in the construction of these facilities, essential in a digitized society.
The multinational headed by Florentino Pérez had already demonstrated its leadership in the data center sector through the projects of its US subsidiary Turner, which has worked with the world’s largest technology companies. Now. These projects make the leap to Europe and the first stone of the alliance between Hochtief and Palladio is located in the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia, where a 9,000 m2 CPD will be built.
[[H2:Turner: líder en la construcción de `data centers´]]
A CPD is an infrastructure on which servers, storage and connection networks are brought together to store the data, process it and facilitate Internet connections and applications. Depending on their size, they may appear, on the outside, to be mere industrial buildings. Inside, they can have thousands of kilometers of cable, fiber optics, servers and other devices, both hardware and software.
The construction of these facilities is quite a challenge. considered a critical infrastructurethey must be built to withstand natural disasters and have important security measures to avoid any type of incident, such as a fire or a flood.
In addition, the security measures with which these facilities are equipped are first class, since critical data resides there, both corporate and personal, so access to these facilities is highly restricted.
Turner Construction, the American subsidiary of ACS, has been commissioned to build some of the main Data Centers in the United States. Tier 1 technology companies, as well as other organizations (including government) such as the United States Army, American ExpressVarious administrations, hospitals, telecommunications companies, among others, have entrusted Turner with the construction of their CPDs.
In this regard, it should be noted that the data centers built by the ACS Group are protected from cyber attacks through the use of firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Other security measures that are applied are the encryption of data at rest and in transit to protect information against possible unauthorized intrusions, regular backup copies to restore data in case of loss or strict restrictions on physical access to facilities through identification systems.
more in portfolio
Given the increasing dependence that we have on the Internet and cloud computing and the increase in Internet users, the CPD market is far from growing.
In fact, is anticipated that 314 new data centers can be added each year at the hyperscaler level alone, so the installed base of operational data centers will exceed 1,000 within two years and will continue to grow rapidly thereafter. The United States currently accounts for nearly 40% of operational hyperscale data centers and half of all global capacity.
Turner assures, in this sense, that a large part of the order-book that the company has is intended precisely for the construction of technological buildings for these entities. The objective is to continue expanding the order book, since for the CEO of the ACS Group “this is only the beginning”.
For now, the CPDs that Turner has raised are found throughout North America, from California to Massachusetts through Canada or Mexico.
sustainable facilities
According to data from the International Energy AgencyCPDs are currently responsible for 1% of all global electricity consumption.
Despite the growth experienced by this sector, its energy consumption has remained stable. It should be noted that, since 2010, the number of internet users worldwide has more than doubled, while global internet traffic has increased 20-fold.
This is due not only to the fact that the manufacturers of all the computer equipment that lives in the DPCs have improved the efficiency of the computer hardware over all these years, but also to the fact that the refrigeration systems that the CPDs are equipped with have also been improved. In fact, the innovations that are produced in this field are constant, in order to consume the lowest possible ratio of energy.
In addition, the International Energy Agency itself confirms that the Replacing small, inefficient enterprise data centers with cloud and hyperscale data centers more efficient is also helping to keep the energy consumption of data centers stable.
In the design and construction of these critical infrastructures, careful account is therefore taken of how they should be in order to maintain, in the most economical way possible, adequate sustainability. A good example of this is the new data center that ACS will build in Germany. The building is built in accordance with the strictest energy efficiency standards and equipped with a particularly economical and innovative water cooling system. The integration of locally generated renewable energy and the use of residual heat are central components of the sustainability strategy, as is its green façade, with which the building is integrated into the urban landscape. The outdoor facilities are planted with high-quality plants that allow rainwater to filter.
The construction of these CPD is part of one of the four fundamental areas of ACS’s strategysuch as digitization. The energy transition, sustainable mobility and the biopharmaceutical and health sector are the other key businesses for the company.