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This is an episode of HawkTalk, datacenterHawk’s series of candid one on one conversations with executives and leaders in the data center industry. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check them all out on our blog. If you’d like to know when we release future episodes, you can subscribe here.

Vantage Data Centers, a North American provider, recently entered the European data center market. As they look to expand in Europe, they’ll be shaping their strategy by paying close attention to their customer's needs.

If you’re short on time, check out a few quick takeaways from our chat below.

Customers know best

Vantage has a clear focus on their customers. That’s why when they’re looking to expand into other markets, they begin by listening to what markets their customers want to be in and move from there.

While they have an interest in expanding to tier one European markets like Frankfurt and London, Vantage also continues to watch some of the smaller markets like Milan, Poland, and Zurich. Vantage will continue to track markets all across Europe and listen to where their customers want to be as they continue to grow and expand in Europe.

The UK data center market

Most of the activity in the UK has been in and around London, but Vantage entered the UK market by acquiring a data center in Wales from local provider NGD.

While Vantage will continue to plan and ultimately aim to be a part of the London market, they are happy with their entrance into the UK with their new Welsh facility.

Moving forward to a more sustainable future

The data center industry as a whole has a focus on the future, but not everyone has their focus set on sustainability. It’s no secret that data centers use a lot of power, and that’s the reason why there have been pushes from providers to make sustainability a goal moving forward.

Vantage focus’ on their customers, and more so than any other influence that’s where they are getting the most push to make their facilities more sustainable. While government regulations are being put into place for energy and water use, Vantage has an even higher standard from their customers with requests like being diesel free by 2030 and needing to produce a positive water flow from data centers in 2030.

If you enjoyed this video discussion be sure to check out our other HawkTalks here.