Pulsant has announced a £1m investment in its Birmingham data centre to meet growing demand for AI infrastructure in the city.
The upgrade to the 2,405 sq. metre facility – acquired from Specialist Computer Centres PLC (SCC) last year – will support increased demand for advanced computing, according to the UK data centre and digital infrastructure platform.
The Birmingham site, five miles southeast of the city centre, has been fully integrated into Pulsant’s UK-wide Edge infrastructure platform, which connects 14 regional data centres from Edinburgh to Fareham on the South Coast. It gives local businesses access to secure, high-speed infrastructure and more than 1,600 technology providers, including international carriers.
The investment also covers upgraded security and a full refurbishment aimed at improving conditions for people working at the site, including both Pulsant staff and regional businesses that keep infrastructure there.
Rob Coupland, chief executive of Pulsant, said: “A year on from our acquisition in Birmingham, we’re excited to unveil powerful new capabilities in the UK’s second city, an economic powerhouse which has traditionally been underserved in terms of digital infrastructure.
“We’re investing in our data centres to meet the urgent need for ultra-low latency, sovereign, compute power across the UK. Our platform is here to support inference AI workloads today, and now we’re all set to scale in Birmingham as demand grows.
“Businesses can move, store and process their data securely close to where they’re based, rather than relying on public internet or routing through increasingly constrained London, while also gaining access to a global ecosystem of tech partners.”
Pulsant research found the Midlands to be the most data-confident region in the UK, with the most ambitious investment plans. More than 60% of Midlands businesses expected to make significant increases to technology investment within two years, compared with a national average of 47%.
Russell Brown, chief executive of SCC UK, said: “We’ve worked closely with Pulsant over the last year and welcome this continued investment in UK digital infrastructure. As organisations adopt AI and manage increasingly critical workloads, they are placing greater importance on resilience, security and knowing where their data is stored and processed. Investments like this help strengthen regional capability, give organisations more choice and support the long-term growth of businesses across the Midlands and the wider UK.”
Pulsant worked with European fibre network provider Zayo Europe to connect the Birmingham site to its nationwide platform.
Colman Deegan, chief executive of Zayo Europe, said: “Industry leaders constantly focus on compute power, but raw capacity is only half the equation. Pulsant’s Birmingham upgrade solves the local power and space challenge, but heavy AI workloads will continue to stall if the underlying fibre networks can’t handle the traffic. That’s where this strategic partnership comes in.
“By plugging the facility directly into our national backbone, we’re removing the infrastructure guesswork for Midlands businesses. It cuts out the London bottleneck entirely, delivering the seamless, low-latency connection required to run real-world AI applications across the region.”
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