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There has been a lot of push, shove and cajoling by parties vested in selling the story that Iceland could be a great place to put a data center. Let me make this point very clear, No business leader or management wants to even use the word “Data Center” and “Volcano” in the same sentence. I don’t understand why some of the Icelanders are wasting their time and money running behind this fools gold! actually, I don’t even believe the margins are that good in data centers to warrant the investment. Yes, there is tremendous growth in Data in the world a trend that is going to continue but a Data Center in Iceland? I don’t buy this. Call me a skeptic. If the idea was that great we would already have Google, Amazon, Microsoft and the likes putting up data centers here like all the big aluminium companies did. I would like to caution those who are claiming that the Government incentive should be made more attractive for the investment, believe me Google or Microsoft needs no Government hand out if they see a good technological or innovation or business advantage to take a business decision. The fact that it has not happened is because it is a BAD idea!
I agree totally. But it's not about volcanoes so much. I do know for a fact that Google did indeed look at Iceland as a site for a data center a few years ago. Decided against it. Primary reason was the poor connection Iceland has. Farice and CANTAT are just two cables. If one is down, there is just one left. Plus Iceland does not have the bandwidth. Depending on what the data center is for, proximity is also an issue. Maybe data backup or something or HPC scientific batch computing. But not for anything that requires high frequency or video content for example. The data centers that run high frequency trading on Wall Street are literally across the street from the stock exchange because PROXIMITY MATTERS.
good point, I think those reasons are by far the most important compared to what is being sold i.e Renewable Energy + Cheap Real Estate which is not that important for any data center as we have data centers now being setup by Google in HK and NYC
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