Interxion to launch two new Marseille data centres

Interxion has announced a massive investment and expansion of its data centres in Marseille, France. The strategy, outlined by Interxion at a major partner event in Marseille last week, includes the construction of two brand-new data centres boosting Interxion’s position as one of the key hubs for Southern Europe and Africa.

When Interxion acquired the first Marseille data centre MRS1 in 2014 it housed approximately 50 networks. Since then Interxion has doubled the size of this community to 100. Now it is looking to build out two of its most ambitious projects

“This rapid growth in the number of telecommunications networks within our data centre in Marseille demonstrates the city’s increasing importance in global connectivity.” said Fabrice Coquio, managing director, Interxion France. “The arrival of a new generation of submarine cables which link Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East from Marseille allows global organisations to connect with each other, exchange data, broadcast content, and take on cloud-related challenges from Marseille. France therefore holds a unique position in Europe, as the home of two international connectivity hubs — Paris and Marseille.”

Coquio should know about the difficulties of building ultra-urban data centres since Interxion’s experiences, and his solutions to those problems, with its Paris data centre last year.

“It is extremely rare for a single facility to bring together so many networks in so little time,” said Mike Hollands, director of marketing and business development at Interxion. “We are committed to developing this community of network providers so we can offer our customers the very best interconnectivity across Europe. This 100th provider consolidates MRS1’s position as the leading interconnection hub for Southern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.”

Against this background, and following the Capacity Europe event in Paris, Interxion gathered almost a hundred international connectivity operator partners together in Marseille on the 10th of November to discuss the major developments in submarine cables which will put France at the heart of global interconnectivity.

A highlight of the day was a tour of the site of Interxion’s planned  MRS2 and MRS3 data centre builds. MRS2 is an old warehouse near the landing site of a new sub sea cable while MRS3 will be situated in a World War II submarine building facility which was abandoned by the Nazis. As Fabrice Coquio said at the event: “It was built entirely without the relevant planning permissions at the time,” and is situated in the heart of the Marseilles Port area. It is built of solid concrete and uses railway sleepers as steel reinforcement

However, it is adjacent to the planned MRS2 and is in the perfect place to pull the much-needed  80 Megawatts of power it will eventually use – as much as a town of 70,000 people.