 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Joe Maxlim and joining me today is Peter Tomeris, chairman of the board of Norwegian data center industry. Peter, thank you so much for talking to me, slowly moving back to normality hopefully and hopefully winter won't be too bad. But I mean, what's not been bad at all has been this year for Norway, the data center industry in Norway. I mean, we've seen some interesting and big acquisitions. So Digiplex acquired by IPI partners, you've had been mounted by the Israeli group, your government just launched a whole new initiative to attract even more investment, international and national investment. I mean, talk us through what's happening in Norway, what is the current state of the markets in Norway from powered to investment? Yeah, I think for a few years, we've been working hard in Norway to actually basically tell the world that we are a perfect place to put data centers. And at the start, we were a few people working together, but right now we've managed to get the whole industry working together on this task and to form the Norwegian data center industry and work together. All the operators, most of the suppliers and a lot of other stakeholders are working together to actually do this job. And then we have a government that has been very forthcoming in actually, I would say, providing the industry with some means and the Norwegian data center strategy that the Ministry of Local Government and Modernization have launched. And that basically tells the world that our government is supporting us. It names a lot of the strategy behind and a lot of the things they are doing to actually make Norway a good place for data centers. Okay, that's interesting. But picking up on the strategy because I went through the whole documents and there's a lot of details there. I mean, it goes from marketing and sales strategies to setting up new activities to attract for the investment. What would you say are the most important, the three most important beats in the strategy that can really leapfrog the industry in Norway? Because I mean, according to the latest market research as well, your means to add about 100 megawatts of least data center power by 2024. So that's a lot of power for a European country over such a short space of time. So how is this strategy, what are the three main points of this strategy that are gonna really attract that investment? No, I would say that the main or one of the main things is the cooperation between public and private sector. Because in Norway, that actually works. This week, I was in Germany actually meeting up with a lot of German companies and they were amazed because in Germany, basically the private and the public, they don't go that well together. In Norway, we actually work together. Of course, at times the interests are conflicting, but still, I would say it's a good cooperation. We have, I would say sort of a guarantee that things are not going to change in a bad way rapidly, which I think for investors, for data center customers, for the whole industry is key. So to me, that's maybe number one. Then of course, in the strategy, they're also naming the different criteria for setting up business. So for instance, the energy tax that has been lowered to about 3% of what it was a few years ago. That is crucial for our industry in the future, I would say, to keep it at that level so that it's even more cost-efficient to go to Norway. And then on top of that, I would say that the continued overproduction of energy makes it very worthwhile to actually work together to basically spend that energy locally if we can. And data centers obviously place well into that. That's the equation. Have you got any idea of how green data centers are in Norway? Because Norway is a huge powerhouse when it comes to renewable energy. So I will almost assume that most, if not all of them will be using renewable energy, but do you know more or less where the market stands? Well, what I can say is that Norwegian companies have been in the forefront in establishing the climate neutral data center pack. So all the major providers, operators in Norway have signed. We would even like to push it further, I think in the future. But in mainland Norway, basically all energy production is 100% renewable. So it's almost all water. We have some wind, we have a tiny bit of solar, but almost all is hydro. So the good thing about hydro is it's storeable in the sense that we can store water and we can have hydro for long periods, even if it stops raining or if it stops snowing, which we don't think will happen very soon in Norway. Let's hope not, to be honest. If it does, I don't think we need data centers anymore. We've got everything to focus if it stops snowing in Norway. So I think in that sense, combined with the lowest price in Europe, you have pretty good conditions for data centers. Okay, well, lots of lessons there, especially on the energy front, especially to the UK in its current stances. But also, I mean, Dishi, you've also launched the Norwegian data center industry of which you are the chairman. Do you want to talk us through what is this organization, what you guys do? How does this, does it even differentiate from the strategy with the government? Is it, where does it stand within even the wider data center market in Norway? Yeah, I can walk you through that. I would say that to me, the biggest thing about the Norwegian data center industry is that it unites all the big players in the market. So all the competitors are actually working together to achieve something. And I'm very proud of the cooperation that we have been able to set up. I think it's unique in Europe. I haven't seen that in any other country. All the competitors working together for a common goal. And it is in line with the strategy from the government, but this has nothing to do with the government in the sense that it's the private companies, it's the industry that's actually part of its association. Then we are supported by the government and by Invest in Norway and other public entities. But here we have Green Mountain, we have Digiplex, we have Base Farm, we have Bulk, we have Leftal, we have Stopcraft, we have a lot of big players working together to achieve that target. And right now we are obviously just starting, but we've already set some goals on what we are going to do on marketing activities, on pushing the renewable part of things, on heat reuse, on a number of other issues that we are going to address together to actually push them forward and make things happen. Okay, well, there was actually one of my next questions about what's to come with an origin that is in the industry. I mean, you've already said that in a way, so let's maybe change the question to in 12 months time, where do you expect to be with an origin that is in the industry? What one thing would you hope to have accomplished by then in terms of organization? No, I think that we will hopefully will have a lot more members. I mean, right now we have all the major ones, all the big ones that we started out with. And we've grown from around 10 members to more than 20 members in just since the end of July, actually. And to continue that growth and basically get all the different stakeholders involved in our association is, I think the key goal in the near future. And then obviously we have some projects that will take longer time, like the heat reuse project that we are working on. We have some really good examples. I mean, we have some fish farming examples. We have some district heating. We have also lobster farming, actually, from Green Mountain recently. So there is a lot going on and we are sharing this and trying to push each other to actually improve and to move the industry forward. That'd be interesting. It'd be interesting to see the ramifications throughout Europe, especially Central Europe. But as we say back home, there aren't two without three, meaning three is a good number. There's always three things that happen at the same time. You've got a booming industry. You've got the Norwegian data center industry, but you are now the CEO of Acrela. So you're taking to a new role, the data center arm of the company. Talk us through what you're doing now as a CEO of the company and the expansion plans that you're gonna be doing because one interesting thing on the announcement was that Acrela will be starting investing data centers outside of the Nordics. So that'll be something very interesting to watch out for. So talk us through what you're doing now and what are the plans where you might go in the future? Yeah, so I joined Akila on the 1st of October, which is not too many days ago. So I'm still fresh in the role, but I've obviously had some time to start settling in. And I think what's unique with Akila is that Akila is already a big player in renewable energy in Europe. They have around 13 billion euros invested, so a pretty sizable investment. And now we are setting up the data center part that hopefully we'll be able to take use of some of that renewable energy and put it into renewable co-location facilities all around Europe. And that's very clear. This is not a Nordic initiative. This is a European initiative by Akila. We are going to build sites in a number of countries. We are planning to make or to create one of the biggest renewable data center co-location providers in Europe. And we are putting together a team of our own people, business partners, and others that will join to really make a difference. And I think you'll see that there will be some news coming up pretty soon. I'm not at liberty to talk too much about specific details right now, but there will be stuff happening. And I'll be happy to come back and discuss that at the later stage. OK. I didn't want to push, but I really need to push a little bit. When you say be the largest one, and you mentioned you're going to build facilities, one, are you also going to acquire? So you're going to do it organically. And when you say the largest one, I guess in Europe you'll have to have about 50 plus facilities to be one of the largest players. Or are you focusing just on being 100% renewable? Or are we going to see Aquila really grow to over 50 facilities in the future? Well, we are definitely focusing on being 100% renewable and being carbon neutral in everything we do. Then I said we were going to be one of the largest players in Europe in that market. So it could be that we are not going to have 50 sites. Let's see. I mean, I'm not saying no. I'm not saying yes. It's early days. And right now we're building the first site. That's a site in Norway. It'll be ready in Q2 next year. And that's a 10 megawatt site. But we are definitely going to come up with a number of other projects pretty soon. Now, if we're going to be 50 sites or 20 or whatever, that's too early to say. But we are definitely going to be a major player in carbon neutral data centers in Europe. OK. I'm very curious to see what comes out in the next year or two as well. Let's start with the next few weeks. But, well, Peter, thank you so much for talking to us. And thank you, our viewers, as well, for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA Podcast. And don't forget to check out social media channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.