Kao Data

The birthplace of fibre optics is now powering the next generation of AI infrastructure. In his latest blog, Kao Data Founder and Chairman, David Bloom, reflects on how a bold vision for Harlow's future has helped transform a former technology campus into one of the UK's leading destinations for AI and advanced computing. Fourteen years ago, many questioned his decision to secure 43MVA of power on a former Nortel site. Today, following the deployment of 22MW of AI inference infrastructure by Nebius, that original allocation is now fully contracted. More than a commercial milestone, it validates a long-held vision that Harlow could become one of the UK's most important hubs for AI and advanced computing. From Sir Charles Kao's pioneering fibre optic breakthroughs to some of the world's most advanced AI infrastructure, Harlow's story continues to evolve. Read David’s full blog here - https://lnkd.in/g_ZBzr3j #EngineeredForAI

We’re delighted Adam Cowan, our new Investment Analyst, to Kao Data! 🎉 Adam will be working on financial analysis and projects to help secure financing to fund the next stage of Kao Data’s development, valuations of our data centre portfolio, and other investment tasks with our shareholders, lenders and other stakeholders. Adam joins Kao from Pantheon, a global infrastructure investor, and previously worked at Octopus Ventures and Mercia Asset Management.   Welcome to #TeamKao, Adam! #EngineeredForAI

BOOM! So exciting for the team here in the UK! Nebius has announced an investment of £1.7 billion to build out capacity in the UK with three new deployments of NVIDIA infrastructure. The three new sites will deploy the latest generations of NVIDIA’s full-stack, end-to-end AI factory platform technology and combined will reach 65 MW when fully ramped up in 2027. In addition to the capacity investment, Nebius is expanding its commercial and AI R&D hub in London and establishing local partnerships with universities and research institutions through Nebius Academy. Nebius's build-out in the UK aligns with the UK Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan and adds domestic compute capacity so British enterprises, researchers, and public services can build and deploy AI at scale. UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan MP said: “Nebius’s investment brings significant AI compute into the UK, giving companies what they need to train, test and run advanced systems here at home – helping drive productivity by rolling AI out widely across the economy.” Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius, said: "The UK is one of the places where AI is being built, deployed, and adopted at the same time — by startups, by enterprises, and by the public sector. The work is happening here and the demand is here. And we are also here for the long run." This is also a great result for our partnership with NVIDIA Read the full press release: https://lnkd.in/eE9Pwu7Q

This week, our Director of Marketing, Lizzy McDowell MCIM, joined industry leaders from SMBC Group and Ashurst for a panel discussion hosted by Infravenir, exploring why data centres have become one of the defining infrastructure and investment themes of our time. Lizzy shared her perspective on the opportunities and challenges shaping the sector, including power availability, planning reform, sustainability and the UK's long-term investment outlook. The conversation also highlighted the importance of collaboration between industry, government and local communities to deliver the infrastructure needed to support future economic growth. Thank you to Infravenir and Ashurst for hosting an insightful discussion on the future of digital infrastructure! #EngineeredForAI

Hybrid facilities vs AI factories: which model will define the future? In his latest contribution to the Kao Data blog, our VP of Customer Solutions, Richard Collar, explores how AI is driving a fundamental split in data centre design between hybrid facilities that support enterprise, cloud, HPC and AI workloads, and highly specialised AI factories purpose-built for GPU-accelerated computing at scale. As AI infrastructure evolves, operators must engineer environments capable of supporting dramatically different power densities, cooling requirements and operational models. From hybrid cooling architectures and liquid cooling technologies, to digital twins and AI workload orchestration, Richard examines the engineering realities influencing the next generation of AI-ready infrastructure. Read the full blog here - https://lnkd.in/eEu-mK8F #EngineeredForAI

One week ago, #TeamKao swapped the data centre for the French Riviera, joining the global digital infrastructure community in Cannes for Datacloud - a techoraco brand. Our highlights included: ⚡ Our new CEO, Spencer Lamb, joining a panel discussion exploring how data centre operators and energy providers are working together to meet rising AI-driven demand at scale. 📖 Launching the second edition of the Critical Careers book, Women Building Careers in Digital Infrastructure, during our annual women in digital infrastructure lunch. The book continues to celebrate the talented women shaping our industry and inspiring the next generation of talent. 🎙️ Recording a special episode of the Critical Careers Podcast, bringing together our strategic partners to discuss how we can collectively build a more diverse, inclusive and future-ready digital infrastructure sector. 🗣️ Our chairman, David Bloom, taking part in a panel discussing AI growth, power constraints, infrastructure resilience and how the industry can create lasting value through next-generation digital infrastructure. 🏆 Winning the Best Community Engagement Award at the Datacloud Awards for the Kao SEED Fund initiative. Most importantly, it was great to catch up with so many of our close peers from across the industry! #EngineeredForAI

A landmark moment for UK AI infrastructure. Today we're delighted to announce a multi-megawatt (MW) AI infrastructure deployment with Nebius, the leading AI cloud company, at our Harlow data centre campus. The 22 MW, 10-year agreement will support AI innovation within the UK’s world-leading academic and research communities, and continued the roll-out of the Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan - reinforcing our Harlow campus as a leading European hub for industrial-scale AI research, enterprise and GPU-accelerated computing. The deployment also forms part of Nebius’ £1.7 Billion investment into the UK, which was announced this morning — further highlighting #Nebius’s role in enhancing the country’s domestic compute capacity by enabling British organisations to harness the power of AI via one of the UK’s largest #AIcloud deployments. Crucially, with our Harlow campus powered by 100% renewable energy, supported by HVO-powered generators, and our KLON-03 facility using the latest advancements in energy efficient, direct-to-chip liquid cooling to minimise water consumption, our data centres will ensure Nebius’s UK infrastructure is closely-aligned with their ethos for sustainable AI. Speaking on the announcement, Spencer Lamb, our CEO, said, “Today marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the Kao Data portfolio and a landmark moment in the UK’s AI ambitions. Nebius is an impressive global AI cloud operator, and we are delighted to welcome such a significant deployment into our Harlow data centre campus. This partnership proves that despite challenging macroeconomic circumstances, demand for industrial scale, UK-based, cutting-edge AI remains high, with Kao Data the perfect platform for the latest AI workloads.”   “We’re pleased to be continuing our expansion in the UK with Kao Data,” said Andrey Korolenko, Chief Product and Infrastructure Officer at Nebius. “The UK is a major destination for AI and is becoming an important part of Nebius’s global footprint. By bringing dedicated capacity to support inference workloads, we can enable UK AI builders and enterprises to achieve their AI goals.”   Learn more about the story here - https://lnkd.in/ep4Nqfqi #EngineeredForAI

We’re thrilled to launch the second edition of the Critical Careers book: Women Building Careers in Digital Infrastructure. The first book set out to challenge the perception that data centres are a narrow, male-dominated world. It introduced women across every discipline, background and career stage who are thriving in digital infrastructure, many of whom had never imagined themselves in it. This edition builds on that foundation but shifts the focus from who is here to what happens once they arrive. The stories move through getting in, moving up and stepping into leadership. Many contributors found the industry by chance, through a recommendation or someone opening a door. What follows is a progression from building confidence, to operating before you feel ready, to eventually creating the conditions for others to grow. Digital infrastructure is still being built at pace, and the roles within it are too. The opportunity now is to be more deliberate about how careers develop within it. For Critical Careers, visibility is only the starting point. Find out more about the book and download your copy here - https://lnkd.in/e9B-jKQ5 Thank you to our strategic partners CBRE Data Center Solutions, AVK-SEG, Eversheds Sutherland, Data Center Solutions at JLL and Mace, and to our media partner Spa Communications for helping us take this further. #EngineeredForAI #CriticalCareers 

We’re proud to have taken home the award for Best Community Engagement at the Datacloud Global Congress Awards last night, for the Kao SEED Fund! 🏆 The SEED Fund (Social Enterprise and Environment Development) was built on the belief that a data centre should be a good neighbour, not just a good building. Since launching in Stockport and Harlow, we've distributed £60,000 in grants to 40 grassroots projects, from community gardens and mental health programmes to free bike repair schemes and youth music workshops. Data centres tend to be invisible to the communities around them. We wanted to change that, and to put money into the hands of local groups who know exactly what their communities need. Huge thank you to everyone at Sector 3 Stockport, Harlow Council and every organisation that applied or received funding! #EngineeredForAI #KaoSEEDFund