Digital Realty will accelerate plans to develop its latest facility on this new land which is located directly opposite its main campus in Sossenheim. The proposed facility, which will add an additional 6MW of power to Digital Realty’s existing 28MW, will measure up to 87,000 ft2 (8,082m²)according to master planning guidelines, and is expected to be open to customers in Q1 2022. The Sossenheim expansion is the latest in a series of European land purchases and data center openings made by Digital Realty, including a land parcel purchased in Paris in July 2019, as well as the opening of the latest facility - Cloud House – in its Digital Docklands campus in London. Digital Realty’s ongoing expansion demonstrates its continued investment in PlatformDIGITALTM, the company’s global platform that supports customers across the world as they navigate digital transformation, and the complexities that arise when faced with increased demand, the need for global coverage and additional capacity. According to Digital Realty’s recent Digital Capitals Index research, data-led technologies – such as AI, IoT, 5G and Blockchain – contributed approximately EUR2.06bn to Frankfurt’s economy last year through new jobs, businesses, industries and efficiencies in public services. However, by 2029 that is expected to more than triple to EUR7.63bn, meaning that in addition to creating value, more strain will be put on businesses to keep up with increasing customer demand, requiring the right digital infrastructure to support businesses. “The number of connected devices is projected to amount to over 75 billion worldwide by 2025, a fivefold increase in ten years – that’s a lot of data being produced. And as the amount of data continues to grow in complexity and size, so will the requirement for apps, services and technology that help make sense of that data,” says Jeff Tapley, EMEA MD, Digital Realty. “With this, we’re seeing businesses under continued pressure to deliver their services to geographically dispersed customer bases and employees at speed.” Tapley continues: “PlatformDIGITAL™ is our answer to this problem, a platform solely designed to help customers connect their entire digital ecosystem together with one single data center provider. Our research has shown that data-led technologies have the ability to inject potentially hundreds of billions into the global economy; however, in order for businesses to capitalize on this, they need flexible and customizable infrastructure that can be deployed wherever, whenever their customers need it.”