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Digital Realty and Schneider Electric Establish New Digital Gateway for Southern Europe
Digital Realty and Schneider Electric Establish New Digital Gateway for Southern Europe
- New digital hub at HER1 reduces Southern Europe’s connectivity and infrastructure gap, enabling the interconnection of international, regional and local subsea cables to better serve EMEA regions.
- Digital Realty’s new HER1 facility uses Schneider Electric’s prefabricated data center solutions to meet challenges of accelerated time-to-market and remote deployment within just 12 months, while adhering to strict resiliency and energy efficiency standards.
Heraklion, Crete, April 9th, 2025 – Schneider Electric, the global leader in energy management and automation, has partnered with Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), the largest global provider of cloud and carrier-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions, to deliver its new HER1 Data Center in Heraklion, Crete.
Launched earlier this week as the first carrier-neutral facility on the island, HER1 plays a critical role in reducing Southern Europe’s digital connectivity and infrastructure gap by enabling the interconnection of international, regional and local subsea cables, empowering cloud, telco, and content delivery networks (CDNs) to better serve the surrounding regions.
Working in tandem with fast-growing markets including Athens, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, and Tel Aviv, HER1 forms a central part of Digital Realty’s Mediterranean data center platform and takes a major step towards establishing Greece as a strategic connectivity hub for Southern and Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Following a successful prefabricated data center deployment at its Marseille 2 (MRS2) facility, Digital Realty leveraged a turnkey, Tier III solution from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxureä Modular Data Center portfolio to overcome a host of challenges at HER1. They included requirements for accelerated speed-to-market with a target to become operational within twelve months, increased levels of energy efficiency, and off-site production, testing, and delivery due to HER1’s remote location in Crete.
To achieve this, Schneider Electric provided a purpose-built solution including two, fully integrated, prefabricated power modules containing MV, transformers, LV, UPS equipment and air-cooling systems. Additionally, it deployed two, large-scale, all-in-one Data Halls, complete with power, cooling and IT, utilizing Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure monitoring solution for buildings management and electrical power management systems (EPMS).
Further, Schneider Electric provided the compete spectrum of data center design, build and consultancy services, including all mechanical, electrical (M&E) and software equipment, production, assembly, commissioning and security services. This enabled Digital Realty’s HER1 facility to meet its demanding deployment timeframes, while minimizing the risk of failures during its on-site installation.
"Digital Realty’s substantial investment in our new Heraklion data center highlights our dedication to establishing the Mediterranean as a global connectivity hub, connecting continents and enabling digital transformation,” said Fabrice Coquio, SVP Digital Realty in France. “Thanks to our strategic partnership with Schneider Electric, we are accelerating the time to market of this critical project to quickly meet the surging digital traffic demands in the region, while enhancing network resilience and diversity for enterprises and communities alike."
A new gateway for southern Europe
According to Telegeography, international bandwidth in southern Europe has seen over 30% compound annual growth since 2016, representing an 6X increase in transmission capacity to the region.
Due to its geographical location and the ongoing investments in submarine networks such as 2Africa, Andromeda, East to Med Corridor (EMC), Medusa, and Thetis, many organizations are selecting Crete as a strategic destination for cable termination and data center deployments - transforming the region into a global interconnection hub that brings multiple continents together.
HER1, Digital Realty’s first carrier-neutral data center in Crete, is located next to the landing point of several of these subsea cable systems and will offer a highly resilient data center capacity to the cloud, subsea cable and connectivity communities.
“For many years Schneider Electric has partnered with Digital Realty to meet exacting standards for its data center buildouts globally, and our work together at HER1 demonstrates the massive potential that prefabricated solutions present to meet demanding deployment timeframes, while minimizing risk,” said Pablo Ruiz Escribano , Senior Vice President, Secure Power and Data Center Business, Schneider Electric, Europe. “The successful delivery of HER1 represents a major turning point for data center deployments in Southern Europe, and by establishing this new global connectivity hub in Crete, Digital Realty will connect customers across continents for many years to come.”
For more information about Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Modular Data Center solutions – visit the www.se.com/ww/en/work/campaign/life-is-on/life-is-on.jsp
About Schneider Electric
Schneider’s purpose is to create Impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability. At Schneider, we call this Life Is On.
Our mission is to be the trusted partner in Sustainability and Efficiency.
We are a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation and digitization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Anchored by our deep domain expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI enabled Industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for our customers.
We are a people company with an ecosystem of 150,000 colleagues and more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We embrace diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful purpose of a sustainable future for all.
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