Big Data Exchange (BDx) continues to expand in Asia Pacific with a planned 16MW data centre campus at a revitalised industrial building in Kwai Chung, Hong Kong.
The company recently signed the lease agreement with property developer Sino Group to become the largest tenant of the soon-to-open 18-storey industrial building at 38 Wing Kei Road in Kwai Chung. The refurbished building, which will be completed in the second quarter of 2023, will be the site of BDx’s new hyperscale date centre.
"This marks another great milestone in BDx's plans in Hong Kong, which is a strategic and important market for our customers," said Vijay Tripathi, chief financial officer of BDx.
"Being one of the fastest growing data centre platforms in the region, we are continuously expanding our footprint in Hong Kong to support digital delivery and cater to the demand from our existing and potential customers.”
As a leading Pan Asian hybrid, hyperscale and edge solutions provider, BDx has assets in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Singapore and Jakarta. It provides colocation, security, private cloud services, disaster recovery services, and interconnect solutions across cloud service providers, telcos, internet exchanges and major data centres.
With a committed equity capital of US$1 billion, BDx’s rapid growth trajectory throughout Asia enables innovation at scale in the most demanding regions.
Last November, BDx Indonesia revealed its plan to develop CGK5, a greenfield 100MW data centre campus, on 12 acres of land located in strategically located in the Suryacipta City of Industry in Karawang, West Java. The site is one of the most sought-after and fully integrated smart industrial estates in Indonesia.
The addition of CGK5 complements BDx Indonesia’s existing four data centre in and around Jakarta, providing hyperscale customers location diversity and a network-dense interconnection ecosystem with redundancy and connectivity. CGK5 will the company’s third availability zone (AZ).
In April last year, BDx said it will triple investments in Singapore after moving its global headquarters to the city The relocation of its headquarters comes on the heels of a string of Singapore-focused announcements, including:
• The launch of 360°View, a ground-breaking data centre agnostic platform delivering critical carbon tracking and hybrid environment monitoring
• Partnership with Sembcorp and the National University of Singapore to develop proof-of-concept and pave the way for offshore data centers to address Singapore's land scarcity and energy efficiency challenges
Advocating for Hong Kong’s re-industrialisation
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has been pushing for the transformation of industrial estates into innoparks as part of the city’s re-industrialisation bid and innotech development.
"Recent years saw the thriving development of innovation and technology. Industry 4.0 has quickly become a global trend. Amid these developments, Sino Group launched a brand new industrial development, 38 Wing Kee Road, with BDx becoming a major tenant. There is no doubt that Hong Kong will be re-industrialised, riding on the development of innotech. We believe that the opening of the data centre will further advance Hong Kong's innotech development,” said Bella Chhoa, director of asset management at Sino Group.
Under the government's industrial building revitalisation measures, Kwai Chung, a conventional industrial district, has rapidly transformed into a business district with unlimited development potential.
The 38 Wing Kei Road industrial building will be fitted with sustainable elements such as touchless lift buttons and electric vehicle charging stations. Also, green elements will be incorporated in the building's exterior walls. The goal is to attain BEAM's silver certification.
Furthermore, Sino Group, in partnership with a local beekeeping conservation group, is installing a beekeeping box on the building rooftop to help in bee conservation.
Meanwhile, Sino Group promotes green living by leasing spaces to local green businesses like eco brick companies and hydroponics companies.
“The idea is to create a mixed living platform in revitalised industrial buildings,” said Chhoa. “We have brought in lifestyle tenants ranging from fitness and yoga centres, rock climbing facilities, healthcare centres as well as a diverse selection of restaurants to encourage work-life balance.”
She added: “Recently, we have brought in a traditional Chinese medicine healthcare centre and a well-known Japanese restaurant to our industrial building revitalization projects in Sha Tin and Kwun Tong, respectively. The TCM healthcare centre has just opened for business this month, and the Japanese restaurant is slated to open in the third quarter this year."
