Swindon could be a prime location for Amazon
They may become the latest company to set up base in the town
Last updated 26th Aug 2021
A NEW superfast computing centre set to be built in the south Swindon countryside could be occupied by Amazon.
Industry experts say the company behind a scheme to demolish two old data halls and build a new one in Wroughton is probably the internet commerce giant and its internet services wing Amazon Web Services.
The halls used by Hewlett Packard until 2020 on the site of the old Burderop Hospital in Brimble Hill will be replaced by a bigger and more modern centre, which would enable extra fast cloud computing after the scheme won the approval of Swindon Borough Council planners.
The application by Mullhaven Properties LLC, a company based in Denver in the USA, says construction and fit out would create up to 400 jobs and continuing operations would bring 40 jobs, rising to 50 after three years.
The application makes much of the green credentials of the new building and its user.
'Commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2040'
It says: “The operator has a strong focus on sustainability and has programmes in place to reduce its carbon footprint, with a commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2040. The operator’s facilities are already far more efficient than traditional enterprise or on premises servers.
"The operator has commissioned studies to estimate the efficiency of its infrastructure in comparison to traditional computing and found it to be more than three times as efficient, due to efficient servers and higher utilisation rates.
“The proposed data centre is also set to achieve over 80 per cent greater energy efficiency compared with a standard building of its type.”
These details have led industry experts to suggest that the company behind the proposal may well be Amazon.
Peter Judge, global editor of industry website Datacentredynamics.com said Mullhaven Properties is a shell company often used by data centre firms to hide their involvement in projects.
He wrote: “The claims on behalf of the eventual operator sound very similar to those Amazon made in a proposal to build data centres on the site of the Didcot A Power Station earlier in 2021.”
Mr Judge says Amazon was confirmed as the company behind that project by references to its renewable energy project in Scotland.
This is not the only new facility being built in Swindon for Jeff Bezos’ company.
Amazon has been confirmed as the publicity-shy customer for a major new building around Swindon.
It was eventually revealed to be the client for whom developer Panattoni is building the huge new £200m warehouse at Symmetry Park just off the A420 at Gablecross, although the company itself has never confirmed it will be using the site.