Digital Manchester Gets A Boost With £2.3million UKFast Data Centre Investment

UKFast claims a £2.3 million upgrade to its Manchester data centre complex will further the North West’s ambition of becoming a tech hub and threaten London’s data centre dominance.

The upgrades include improvements to the security of UKFast’s colocation space and the construction of a new high-density, high-resilience compound within the existing facility.

The company adds that businesses in the region will have access to infrastructure previously unavailable to them.

Manchester investment

The new facility – in line with both the List-X and IL4 security standards – has been designed with security in mind in order to meet the heightened regulation needs of government, financial services, international telecoms and utility organisations.

“This investment is a massive feather in the cap for Manchester,” said UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones. “Previously, firms had to collocate their hardware in London if they wanted this level of infrastructure. Right now, UKFast is doing more to future-proof IT infrastructure in the North West than any other provider.”

The investment follows on from the addition of a DC Support Hub to UKFast’s datacentre complex in May which added physical security and security network operations centre, as well as the expansion to the firm’s headquarters in October.

Manchester has been on the rise has a tech hub over in recent times, with a Cisco innovation centre opening this time last year and the city being noted for having the strongest phone reception in the UK.

But, if it wants to catch up with London as the UK’s tech centre, it will have a hard time doing so. The likes of Apple, Google and most recently Snapchat have all announced plans to expand their presence in London as the city continues to attract top tech talent.

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