13 October 2022

Berlin 2 Data Center goes live

The new site provides an initial IT capacity of 24MW on a data center area of almost 10,000m²

Hattersheim / Main, Germany – 13 October 2022 – NTT Ltd.'s Global Data Centers division is expanding its data center capacity in the German capital. The new Berlin 2 location includes two data centers in the first construction phase.

In view of the extreme rise in energy prices and concerns about electricity and gas shortages in Germany, the intensive use of waste heat, which accumulates in large quantities in modern data centers, is of particular importance. At this site, NTT is working with partners to develop what we believe to be the largest project in Germany for reuse of waste heat for district heating. The use of new technologies will significantly improve energy efficiency and thus the ecological footprint; we envisage the CO2-free waste heat from the data center will heat many buildings in Berlin and supply them with hot water in the future. 

The grand opening took place in the presence of Franziska Giffey, Governing Mayor of Berlin. “NTT, one of the world's leading operators of data centers, establishing a second site in Berlin shows that our city is an attractive business location. The availability of high-performance data centers is the prerequisite for the digital transformation that will keep our economy competitive in the long term," said Franziska Giffey, acknowledging the importance of the new data center location. "The fact that the resulting waste heat from the data center is fed into GASAG's heating network and can be used for other buildings is an important contribution and a good, sustainable idea, not only in the current situation."

With a maximum IT capacity of 24MW on almost 10,000m² of IT space in the first two data center buildings, NTT offers its clients a secure and highly available environment for the reliable and efficient operation of modern IT systems. The offering ranges from individual colocation racks and single cages to individually planned turnkey suites. The best possible availability and efficiency are ensured by, among other things, fully redundant systems for uninterruptible power supply (UPS), generators for the emergency supply of the data centers, and highly efficient cooling systems that do not consume water even in midsummer. The quality of the data centers in Berlin 2 is proven by demanding certifications (ISO 9001, ISO 50001, ISO 27001 IT-GS A10 and PCI DSS). The site is connected to major carrier hubs, such as BCIX, the main cloud networks and also to all other NTT data centers in Germany. The new location is just 14km from the existing Berlin 1 data center site. This gives companies the opportunity to operate their IT environment in a particularly fail-safe redundancy between NTT's Berlin 1 and Berlin 2 locations.

"The heart of the digital economy and society beats in data centers. If we want to successfully implement the German government's digital strategy, we urgently need data centers like these. At the same time, a location here in Germany guarantees companies their digital sovereignty, i.e. the greatest possible control over the IT systems and data used. With our second data center location in Berlin, we are meeting the high demand and are already planning for the future: When completed, Berlin 2 with buildings C and D will have a maximum IT capacity of 48MW and 19,200m² of data center space," explained Florian Winkler, Chief Executive Officer at NTT Global Data Centers in EMEA. 

The aspects of sustainability and carbon footprint play a particularly important role in data centers today. Thanks to highly efficient cooling technologies, intelligent power management and power-saving components, the Berlin 2 Data Center will achieve an impressive PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) value of less than 1.3 during regular operation. In addition, NTT will feed a significant portion of the waste heat generated by the data center into a heating network that will be used to supply the neighbouring Marienpark, as well as other consumers in the surrounding area. The heat supply is planned by Investa and GASAG as part of a cooperation. At the beginning, the new campus will provide approx. 2MW of thermal power all year round from the already completed components A and B. The heat will be used for the entire year. To our knowledge, this is the largest project in Germany for the use of waste heat from data centers, with a utilization share of approx. 20% of the heat generated. This amount of heat could supply almost 1,000 modern single-family homes.

By providing the CO2-free waste heat, NTT is creating the basis for climate-friendly management of the neighbouring 385,000m² Marienpark Berlin commercial district. In addition, we want to work closely with GASAG to provide a further total of up to 10MW of thermal power from the two data centers, which is intended for use in other neighbourhoods. The aim is to achieve a utilization rate of up to 80% of the waste heat generated. In addition, the CO2 balance of the electricity used is to be significantly improved in the long term by means of suitable power purchase agreements (PPAs) from regional renewable energy producers.

"NTT's new data center location is not only a huge gain for digitization in Berlin, but also offers immense potential for the city's energy supply. Together with our partner Investa, we are using the waste heat generated for a sustainable energy solution in Marienpark. The additional waste heat potential offers the opportunity to supply many more commercial and residential buildings with sustainable heat in the future and to make a significant contribution to decarbonization in Berlin," said Georg Friedrichs, CEO GASAG.

NTT has massively increased its data center footprint in Germany this year: In addition to Berlin 2, with a total of 24MW of IT capacity provided, a further 24.5MW has already been commissioned in Frankfurt 1 and 4, as well as in Berlin 1. In the coming months, data center capacity in Germany is to be expanded by a further 41MW.

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About NTT Ltd.

As part of NTT DATA, a USD 30 billion IT services provider, NTT Ltd. is a leading IT infrastructure and services company serving 65% of the Fortune Global 500 and more than 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We lay the foundation for organizations’ edge-to-cloud networking ecosystem, simplify the complexity of their workloads across multicloud environments, and innovate at the edge of their IT environments where networks, cloud and applications converge. We offer tailored infrastructure and ensure consistent best practices in design and operations across all of our secure, scalable and customizable data centers. On the journey towards a software-defined future, we support organizations with our platform-delivered infrastructure services. We enable a connected future. 

Visit us at services.global.ntt.

For press enquiries please contact:

Global Data Centers
Michelle Heitkamp
Marketing Manager | EMEA
Tel.: +49 69 7801-2117
dc.emea.press@global.ntt