Turnkey Data Center Route UK and Germany
Dünya Gazetesi / October 2024
We talked to Yüksel Açık, Chairman and CEO of Açık Holding, about the goals of Serban, the global company of Açık Holding, which operates in 6 critical areas such as telecom and information technologies, aerospace and defense industry, construction, operational technologies, health and healthcare technologies, and tourism. Yüksel Açık, who is also a civil engineer, said that they laid the foundations of today's Açık Holding by starting to work in the telecommunications sector in 2000 and that Serban is one of the locomotive companies of the holding. He also mentioned that Serban produces solutions in the construction, energy, tourism and real estate sectors.
“Construction is 17-20 percent of the business”
Yüksel Açık pointed out that the need for data centers arose with the enactment of the Personal Data Protection Law in Turkey and the obligation to store data in the financial sector. He explained that they started their work in the data center sector in 2016 by combining their experience in telecommunications and construction. He emphasized that this requires a separate area of expertise, noting that the construction aspect of data centers accounts for 17-20 percent of the project, while approximately 80 percent of the work is telecommunications and technology-based, requiring high-engineering solutions.
“We Realize Turkcell's Data Center Projects on Turnkey Basis”
At this point, we partnered with Turkcell, Turkey's largest technology company, which serves as an important catalyst for both individuals and businesses in the digitalization process with its strong technological infrastructure and comprehensive range of services. Leading the country's digital transformation, Turkcell plays a key role in this field by implementing high-capacity data center projects to store data within Turkey.
Pointing out that they entered the data center sector through Turkcell's data center infrastructure projects, Açık continued: ‘’Then we realized projects for leading companies such as Ziraat Bank and Vodafone. We are an engineering and contracting company that provides turnkey services. Therefore, we offer end-to-end solutions to data center investors. We are the only company capable of building turnkey data centers, from land selection and design to feasibility studies, construction, and technological integration. Currently, we have completed over 100 megawatts of IT load in the data center sector. Our goal is to be the first company that comes to mind for data center investors, both in our country and globally. We have also taken important steps in this direction. We established Serban UK in the UK and Serban Germany in Germany to manage our activities in Europe. We are expanding our organization in these regions, and in 2025, we plan to be more active in these countries. We are preparing to undertake turnkey data center projects worldwide, including in Europe.’’
"The global data center market is expected to reach $622.4 billion by 2030." Yüksel Açık, who discussed investment in data centers both in Turkey and globally, continued: The data center market is projected to reach $622.4 billion during the 2024-2030 forecast period. Given this enormous market potential, we recognize the importance of our investments in R&D and human resources in the data center sector. We are growing through strategic structuring by closely following industry developments. We are involved in major data center projects. For example, we will soon be working on Vodafone's data center project, which will begin construction in Izmir.
There is a problem of qualified personnel
Underlining that it is difficult to find trained personnel in the data center sector in Turkey, Yüksel Açık said that in order to close this gap, we have collaborated with Kocaeli University, one of Turkey's leading educational institutions, as Açık Akademi, which offers training and development opportunities within Açık Holding. Within the scope of the project, we will teach “Data Center Systems” course to the students of the Department of Electrical Engineering with our experienced instructors in the data center sector. In the 14-week courses, we plan a training that covers all disciplines of data center projects, from data center standards, energy management, white space integrated management to data center design. Thus, we aim to provide our country with qualified graduates who are experts in their fields by providing practical and theoretical information together.”
Source: Dünya Gazetesi