 Welcome to JSATV Europe, and our live two-day event on 2023 predictions. I'm Jean-Marc Lehmann, joining me today from Norway. It's Matt Anderson, Marketing Director at Leftal Mind Data Center. Matt, thank you so much for talking to me. It's been a while since I last spoke to you. I think last time was pre-COVID, that I saw you down in Monaco. So I hope you've been keeping well and the last three years weren't too much of a pain. Before we delve into how the market is changing, especially marketing around data sense is changing. Tell us, how did you get involved with the data sense and marketplace in the first place? Yeah, thank you. And it's really nice to see you again. Feels like a long time ago, but nowadays things go fast, right? Yeah, well, it's a long story, but keeping it kind of short, I'm about 10 years ago moved to the west coast of Norway, where my wife is from, and I was working in international sales and marketing. This is kind of a rural place in Norway. So I was doing a lot of commuting every week, but all of a sudden this left on mind data center was an idea that came up just in the closeness to where I live. And then I started talking to them and them to me. I had the vast international sales marketing experience. They had a product which is clearly set for the global market. So we decided that let's try this together. And then I kind of self trained for the data center industry over the two, three, four, five, six months to come since they hadn't been deeply involved in all layers of this and really enjoy this industry. Okay, well, interesting because I mean, how hard it is to market a data center which is like thousands of kilometers underground. I mean, when I saw your scale model the first time, I didn't even understand the first time I saw it in 2015. I think it was only the after when I saw it again, they understood what the green pipes meant as in the tunnels. How is it to market the data center like that? Because that's quite unique. Yeah, and now we do know that we have unique solution in many ways. And that makes my job in marketing as those kind of easy in the first steps. But what seems to be an interesting object and it's kind of different in many ways. I'm not sure the audience understands this but we're in the mountain, more deep inside the mountain which is a big structure. Now that gives some advantages because you are secure, you're having a very logistical great flexible product which is unique. But at the same time, you also need to train some of the potential customers in that being in the mountain hall is something that is good because of XYZ. So we have both sides of the edge, so to say, but all in all really cool project work with when doing marketing compared to a regular data center anywhere in the house building type of. So I appreciate it. You can't be more nature connected if you wanted to. I was gonna ask around marketing in general of data centers. What would you say are the three major steps in marketing facilities today? And I guess what have been the biggest event around marketing in 2022? Sure, kind of a boring answer really, but for us, it's of course important to align everything when it comes to marketing with our vision. So we have a vision which is setting some mission targets on what we want to achieve. Now, at the same time as we have a vision, we also have some USB unique selling points. And when you combine those two, you have a proposition to the market. You could then go to the buyer behavior and you look at what's leading their decision making either being the decision makers or ambassadors within certain prospects. If you take that behavior, analyze that and put that next to your value proposition, you of course then will get a hopefully a really cool marketing message that aligns all these interested parties. Now for us, it's kind of a little bit different than others, maybe we are a clear whole sale facility, meaning we have a limited amount of customer lodgers. So we're B2B and with big B at the end. So we have a limited amount of touch points, but we are very careful about the message, which channel to whom and when. And that is of course really crucial in terms of how we invest time, money and resources into our marketing. And the second question was that about the highlights 2022? Yeah. Yeah, now there hasn't really been any highlights, I think because it's all a lot of the same things going on. But I see that it is moving a little bit towards both leadership, I appreciate that. People sharing their experiences, sharing their competence within this. But again, it's easy to always jump to what do I have available? Who's gonna, what's short term and how can we do that? I'm happy to see that there has been a remarkable shift towards sustainability. As a company, we are truly committed to building one of the most sustainable solutions in the world and keep on trying to achieve that every day. So the marketing is of course in direction of that producing carbon neutrality and that is good, I think. But except from that, there hasn't been any sort of really clear highlights, boring world in that sense. Yeah. I don't know if it's controversial or not, but do you bring sales people into the marketing planning? Yes. There's always a lot of conversation around that. Yeah, we do and we are in our role, we're kind of working as a team on the strategy, on the vision and on the marketing messages, but also the production and the customer satisfaction combining all of those together is really important. And we're fairly small company, meaning we have the ability to do so. Not everyone can do that in the same scale as we can, but I think that's really key to making wise decisions in all aspects of this circle of our targets and mission and marketing message. Yeah, we do. Okay, and then so going into 2023, what would be the one thing that you would like to see improved when it comes to marketing the sector? And that can be left out related or it can just be market in general, but what's the one thing that you think the market needs to improve and get a grip next year? Yeah, I think that we as an industry, so data center industry globally, obviously we're consuming more and more power where we are a resource that the world is becoming dependent on the digital future that we have, but we have to take this responsibility deeper, I think. So when we market left on mind data center or in Norway as a data center nation or the Nordics, I think that we are now more and more talking about the future. We're not talking about what you can get tomorrow and what we have available, but we're talking about leadership. So we are, when we have a vision to accomplish something, what we strive to work for every day, what are our ambitions, what are we working towards? Those are the type of messages that we would like to see going into marketing. And the reason is really simple because of course we want to attract customers showing that we have a forward thinking, but we also want to motivate the industry and our competitors to work on the same things as we are. And we're so glad if they are doing that and making us one plus one is free. And at the same time, if they start also marketing more about future technology, how we can improve, we will of course be motivated by them as well. So I'm hoping that the industry as such will market the industry and our path to a more sustainable and efficient platform for the future world of the global digitalization. Sustainable, efficient and an enabler of the future, which so often gets forgotten. And then I was gonna ask about left dial itself. So the company, what has been happening that is in the halls over there? And why are you planning for next year? I'm sure there'll be expansion. There's always expansion everywhere we go to. So tell us how's the year gone by and what can we expect for next year? Yeah, so since we met last time, obviously we had a COVID-19. So if you go a couple of years back, we not an ideal happening for international data centers that you have COVID-19 with limited travel and limited people moving around to see, scout and experience the product. So of course, it was not that perfect for us or anyone. But having said that, we did really well throughout that period. We, as a wholesale, we signed larger deals, so megawatt deals. And we did manage to sign three large contracts in addition to a few smaller. How much in total if you can share? So we would ramp up plans. We signed some 23 megawatts over that period, which is substantial, but it's only 10% of our total capacity. That's slowly. Having that set aside, two of them are kind of public. So we did sign the Mercedes-Benz, their HPC cluster for internal customers, a large contract moving up. They're officially started already. And now they're also looking in if they can move conventional data center load up Nordics. The reason for that is, of course, that they want to reduce their carbon footprint as such. They are aiming at having carbon-neutral data centers by 2025 globally. And they're consolidating data centers and moving that to a Nordic footprint, which has happened to be left on mine data centers. So a really strong case for us and really shows the market. They're first movers together with a few others, but this is the trends that are actually happening now. Not only in theory anymore, but now also in practice. We also did a big deal with Sigma II, which is a Norwegian public sector company for the future supercomputers of Norway. So kind of a 12 megawatt ramp up plan, including storage systems and setting up a high secure facility, cost efficient green sustainable for the public sector in Norway and a few others. But those are the things we did during COVID, which was a good product. Even if it was a COVID, it was a good kind of development for us. We're also right now, we're adding transformers. We're buying transformers and adding 80 megawatt of power to our facility, starting in the Q1. So that will go live then, meaning we have room for more customers going forward. But as I said, we're 200 plus at the end of the day, but this is all now being rolled out. Yeah, and one really cool thing as well. I have lots, but I have to limit a little bit, but we've been nominated the greenest data center in the world a couple of times, but we always strive to take that a step further. And of course, the reuse of waste heat has come as more or less the condition now going forward, but we have developed a really cool concept for that now with reusing our heated water to a local salmon production, meaning that we are in the 2024, or when this goes live, we're actually gonna be carbon negative on our data center operations, meaning that our customers like Mercedes-Benz can do an offset negatively in their carbon calculations, depending on if they're using left on my data center or not. So that's really a cool achievement that we're proud of. And of course, at the end, we are building one of the most secure data centers, physical secure data centers in the Nordics, and with the recent developments with bronze and buildings being demolished and wars, et cetera, we are really striving to make sure that we have this mountain hole where you're 700 meters into the mountain with naturally MP security and enhance that security aspect of the concept. So lots of other things, but that's just sort of high level. But it definitely keeps you busy. I was gonna ask, are there any conversations around picking up this business model? I'm going to another mine, let's say in Norway or the wider Nordics or even Europe, are there any plans to kind of replicate this? Yeah, and funny that you asked, so we have enough with our team and our investors, we're really focusing on building one of the coolest, greenest, most secure and cost-effective data centers in the world. So we're doing that now with our resources, but we have four or five initiatives last year of existing mountain holes in Norway, and can you help us kind of approach, or can you invest, can you take us to the next level? And also we have over the last few months been involved with Singapore, with China, with Japan, with the US and a couple of other Italy on people or in Israel on the countries and the existing mountain holes that would like to do the same thing as us. And what we do is that we always share what is not kind of secret. That is how you can do it. Now, of course, we have a certain cooling solution with the fuel next to us, which is hard to replicate really, but having the cooling in place, we really want people to understand, learn, and we share as much as possible. Interesting, well, it's gonna be a busy 12, 24, 36 month period then, if that needs to replicate this around the world. But, Matz, if people want to reach out and learn more about left dial, where can they go to? You know, obviously, to me, always, we are, even if we are a large product with a great market, we are also small in organization, so I'm happy to help in any way, but also the webpage, of course, which is our leftalmind.com. So please, you know, just reach out the hand if we can be of help. We will send them to the right part of our organization to make sure that we do our best. Okay, well, Matz Anderson, thank you so much for talking to me, and thank you to our viewers for tuning in to JSA TV Live. Don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking. Thank you.