Edge Data Center Firm EdgeConneX Expands into Europe

EdgeConneX, a young data center service provider that rolled out more than 20 so-called edge data centers around the US over the last two years, has started an expansion push into Europe, announcing the launch of a data center in Amsterdam.

The company, which has the likes of Cox Communications and Comcast as its investors and customers, has been launching sites in second-tier US markets that are removed from major internet hubs, such as New York, Northern Virginia, or Silicon Valley. It provides data center capacity for online video companies and cloud service providers to cache data locally for serving customers in those markets, rather than paying a lot of money to backhaul the content from the distant hubs.

By attracting both online content providers and local internet service providers that deliver that content to local users to its data centers, EdgeConneX expands the “edge” of the internet. Other players, such as vXchnge, are targeting a similar opportunity, although not at the speed and scale EdgeConneX is.

Read more: How Edge Data Centers are Changing the Internet's Geography

Amsterdam is not an edge data center market. It is one of the most important interconnection hubs in Europe and in the world, but Amsterdam is only the first step in the company’s European expansion. Next on the slate are Ireland, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, and the UK, the company said.

“Our Amsterdam facility will be our first edge data Ccenter in Europe and we look to replicate our US model internationally, supporting a highly distributed data center architecture at the edge of the internet,” Clint Heiden, chief commercial officer at EdgeConneX, said in a statement. “We are excited to see the adoption of our strategy by leading European broadband and internet providers. Our Amsterdam edge data center is a collaborative ecosystem effort and is the first step to bringing our business model benefits to all of Europe.

Read more: vXchnge Buys Eight Sungard Facilities in Edge Data Center Markets

After about one and a half years of breakneck expansion in the US, EdgeConneX has slowed its data center rollout. Company representatives told us in February 2015 that they expected to have north of 30 data centers by the end of the year – up from 20, most of which came online in 2014.

EdgeConneX now has 23 data centers in the US, according to Tuesday’s announcement.