UK Government Breathes Life Back Into UK’s Essential Data Centre Industry
17 December 2013
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Posted by: Kelly Edmond
The UK Government has finally recognised the economic
importance of the Data Centre sector – one of the few industries where UK plc
has a world lead – by their inclusion for the first time ever in a Government
announcement.
(Data centres are
the giant computing factories that drive industry, commerce, the cloud and social media.)
Said Data Centre Alliance President and former Minister of
Transport Steven Norris, “The Chancellor of the Exchequer finally recognised
Data Centres in his Autumn Statement as the major industry and economic wealth
creator that they are, by removing the punitive tax regime that had been making
the UK non-competitive in this business and forcing companies to off-shore
their data centres.
“Britain is a world leader in the Data Centre industry and
the Climate Change Levy had been wrongly applied to it because the Government,
and indeed the public, were totally unaware of its existence! Something we at
industry body the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) have been working hard this year
to change. The Chancellor’s Autumn statement plus the winning of the first ever
European Strategic Research funding for Data Centres now demonstrates that DCA
has succeeded in bringing this previously unseen industry onto the Political
agenda.”
Norris went on to explain that the Data Centres are
buildings full of computer servers that power things like Facebook, Twitter,
E-mail, the Banks all big businesses. Airline booking systems, Air Traffic Control,
the NHS, city traffic lights and in fact just about every part of our lives are
controlled by these massive data centres.
“The UK was one of the very first countries to develop
Data Centres out of our world-class telecommunications and mainframe computing
industries,” Norris said, “and we were in serious risk of loosing what are
effectively the UK’s only remaining ‘factories’.”
We refer to them as ‘factories’ because they store and
make information out of raw data. They are massive – often the size of five or
six football pitches – and can consume as much electricity as a small city. “What
the Government is now starting to understand is that it is essential to protect
and grow one of the few industries where UK plc still has a world lead,” said
Norris, “and we are delighted that DCA’s efforts in representing the industry
to them have, in such a short period of time had such significant results.”
As recently as June 2013 when the DCA in conjunction with
the UK’s foremost political magazine New Statesman produced the UK’s first
mainstream expose of the hitherto ‘hidden world’ of data centres, no Government
Minister could be found to write a contribution, because they were unaware of
this massive sector.
The publication of that Special Report and a personal
briefing by DCA to Greg Baker Minister of State at the Department of Energy and
Climate Change brought about an instant interest. So much so that by the time
of the second DCA/New Statesman Data Centre Special Report in August 2013
Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willets wrote a leader
article recognising the importance of the sector and noted that Government
Ministers Vince Cable, Michael Fallon and Ed Vaisey had all now been to visit
Data Centres!
In the New Statesman/DCA special report, Willets wrote:
“Data centres are a crucial part of that infrastructure, and are an
area that the government needs to understand better. They are the physical,
tangible manifestation of the somewhat invisible and ethereal concept which is
the internet. They are absolutely fundamental to a successful and vibrant
information economy in the UK, supporting some of our biggest global companies,
and our research institutions. London’s successful financial sector could not
function without the state-of-the-art data centres in areas like Docklands,
enabling computer-based and low-latency trading.
Data centres are the tangible manifestation of the ethereal internet
Moreover, in the UK we are good at putting together data centres – and
this is expertise we can export to the world at a time when global spending on
data centres is predicted to reach $149bn next year.
Concluded the DCA’s Executive Director Simon
Campbell-Whyte, , “We are delighted that the UK Government has now recognised
the imperative to grow and support this sector. And, although as an
organisation we represent the industry globally we believe that this is a major
milestone in the success of UK plc and are proud that we were able to achieve
this on behalf of our members.”
“It is of course only a first step, and we are standing by
to assist UK Government and Governments worldwide as they come to terms with
understanding and supporting the digital factories that now power the global
information economy.”
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