Iceland's data center opportunities and challenges

The Ásbrú area is a unique region within Iceland that used to house a NATO military base. NATO vacated the area in 2006, leaving a government-run real estate company called Kadeco to repurpose the area, which already has living quarters available that used to house NATO servicemen and women and their families. It's also close to the Keflavík International Airport, Reykjavík Harbor and electrical substations. Kadeco expects data center real estate to grow in the Ásbrú area.

Within Ásbrú, Fitjar (pictured) is a 50-megawatt, 120,000 square-meter "shovel ready" build site for future data centers. A facility can be built there in a matter of weeks, according to Borealis's Björn Brynjúlfsson. All that's needed is a customer.

Photo: The Fitjar site is one of many potential future data centers if Iceland's IT industry takes off.

Editor's note: The visits to Verne Global, Advania and Borealis data centers as well as other Icelandic sites were sponsored by Invest in Iceland, an organization facilitating foreign direct investment business opportunities in Iceland.

Read more about developing data centers in international locations:

Niobrara's on-site energy gen concept

Dealing with poor data center locations

How to gauge data center resiliency

Assessing data center facilities and ops

What it's like building data centers internationally