Pulsant unveils high-density data center in Milton Keynes

Data center operator Pulsant has made a £10 million investment to build a new, high-density data hall in Milton Keynes.

The 1.2 MW site is purpose-built to handle high-density computing tasks including intensive AI and machine learning workloads.

According to Pulsant, the main target market for the new site includes organizations operating in the financial services, healthcare and biotech, IT, and gaming sectors.

“The £10m expansion of our Milton Keynes data center is another big investment in our digital platform to meet hunger for high density compute power,” said Rob Coupland, CEO at Pulsant.

“UK digital infrastructure is facing unprecedented demand. With AI-ready capacity in short supply, bringing high performance, flexibility and choice to regional locations is critical."

The site will join Pulsant’s national platform of 14 UK data centers connected by a 400Gb-capable network. It opens low-latency access to more than 1,600 cloud services, network providers, and business partners, the company said, providing connectivity for global traffic routing and access to international networks.

Pulsant eyes out-of-London gains

Pulsant is touting its out-of-London location as a major selling point for the facility. It’s sited within the UK’s Oxford-Cambridge tech supercluster, home to businesses with 570,000 employees generating £135 billion in annual turnover.

Meanwhile, the firm claimed it can offer just two milliseconds’ latency to London Docklands and Slough and is highly resilient, with 10 carriers on site, including access to Megaport.

"For organizations looking for ultra-low latency, international connectivity and UK sovereign compute power, Milton Keynes is a great option compared to constrained and costly London data centers which lack the opportunity for expansion,” said Coupland.

"Our unique platform gives local, national and international clients the flexibility to circumvent some of the risks associated with the London cluster, while maintaining high performance, resilience and connectivity.”

Pulsant completed a £187 million debt refinancing round last summer following a year in which it acquired SCC’s Birmingham and Fareham data centers. The Birmingham site added 2 MW of capacity and 25,000 sq ft of white space, with Fareham offering a 3 MW capacity.

The company said it now plans to roll out its high-density model to other key regions.

A data center boom time for the UK

Data centers are experiencing something of a boom in the UK. Late last year, the UK government committed £500 million to strengthening domestic AI capabilities through a series of AI initiatives, including a new Sovereign AI Unit due to launch later this year. 

It launched new AI Growth Zones, in which data centers will get significant discounts on their electricity bills, if they are located in areas that could help to reduce pressure on the energy network.

Developers, meanwhile, could be supported to connect their own high voltage lines and substations to power their data centers, rather than having to wait for network operators to do it.

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