Liberty Global has joined up with investment firm Digital Colony to launch a joint venture dedicated to developing edge data centres in Europe. Creation of the new AtlasEdge Data Centres company is still subject to regulatory and merger control approvals but the parent companies expect the transaction to close in the third quarter. No financial details were provided about the deal.
The plan is for AtlasEdge to deliver services via an extensive network of facilities located close to consumer and enterprise end users, the “edge” of the network. The company aims to serve the growing demand from cloud providers, streaming services and enterprises for high-performance, scalable and secure facilities through which they can distribute low-latency applications and services such as 5G, gaming, IOT and edge compute.
Liberty Global will contribute digital infrastructure assets to the company, including its technical real estate portfolios. It will also provide strategic and operational support. Digital Colony will provide operating expertise, strategic direction and capital.
At completion, Digital Colony operating partner Josh Joshi will join and lead AtlasEdge’s board of directors as executive chairman. Joshi has held a number of senior executive positions over the span of his career, including that of CFO at data centre group Interxion. At AtlasEdge, he will focus on the company’s strategic growth, with a focus on building the organisation and extending its reach across European markets.
The new company will be supported by anchor tenancies from Liberty Global operating companies in four European countries, including Virgin Media in the UK and in Ireland, Sunrise-UPC in Switzerland and UPC in Poland.
