New atNorth Data Center to be Located in Akureyri, Iceland

atNorth, a Nordic colocation company and HPC service provider, has revealed the location of its fourth data center.

The facility will be built in Akureyri, in northern Iceland, and will eventually span a total of 4,000 square meters (approximately 43,000 sq ft), with six data halls and 12MW of capacity.

atNorth says that the facility in Akureyri will have PUE rating as low as 1.03 – that is, almost all energy will be used for computing. Since cooling is consistently an issue with HPC, the company uses the local climate to its advantage, helping to increase the efficiency of the process.

“We welcome the development of this site in Akureyri,” said Ásthildur Sturludóttir, the mayor of the town.”The project complements recent infrastructure projects in the Northeast of the country, that will ensure safe and secure transfer of electricity to the area. Increasing the access to electricity as well as the security in the transfer to the north-east area makes this type of development possible.”

Colder, further away, and more sustainable

atNorth (formerly known as Advania) is a sustainability-focused company, and its sites only use renewable energy from hydro and geothermal power plants.

It began with a single data center, the facility called “Thor,” which atNorth acquired from Skyrr, one of Iceland's largest IT service providers. Since then, the company has expanded to two locations in Iceland (now three) and one in Sweden.

“We are the first colocation player in the Nordics to build facilities fully equipped for high-capacity services from the start,” said Eyjólfur Magnús, atNorth CEO. “The choice of Akureyri is strategic, it is already a thriving high-tech hub with many technology companies in the area and the new center will offer many job opportunities to an already excellent and talented workforce.

“In addition, Iceland’s colder climate and renewable energy sources allows businesses to tap into a sustainable infrastructure with great connectivity and cost efficiencies, which will allow us to deliver our services with high precision to customers both in and outside the Nordic region.”

Back in 2018, Advania became the victim of a real data center heist, when in a series of four data center burglaries, thieves stole $2 million worth of cryptocurrency mining servers.