Launched in 2018, Kao Data develop and operate advanced data centres for high performance colocation. From our hyperscale inspired campus in the heart of the UK Innovation Corridor between London and Cambridge - we provide cloud, HPC, AI and enterprise customers with a world-class home for their compute.
Our Harlow campus - built on the site of Sir Charles Kao’s pioneering discovery of fibre optic cable in 1966 - is a development of four state-of the-art, OCP-Ready®, carrier neutral data centres. When fully completed the 15 acre, +£230m campus will support an ITE load of over 40MW, across 150,000sq ft of technical space – all powered by 100% renewable energy.
Backed by Legal & General Capital and Goldacre - Noé Group, Kao Data is one of the largest campus developments in the UK and represents the future in sustainable, efficient and scalable computing - providing an industry blueprint to develop further best-in-class data centres.
Kao Data’s campus is strategically located in Harlow, less than 20 miles from central London and ideally positioned within the Cambridge-Stansted-London ‘UK Innovation Corridor’.
The Innovation Corridor is the UK’s fastest growing economic region and a specialist area for life sciences laboratories, pharmaceutical multinationals, scientific research institutes and artificial intelligence start-ups. Globally prominent as a region for invention and enterprise, there are more patents per capita in the UK Innovation Corridor than Silicon Valley.
Kao Data’s ultra-low risk location is easily accessible from any of London’s centres of finance, commerce or government, and equally from the science and research communities in-and-around Cambridge. Through London Stansted Airport we enjoy direct links to Europe, the US and Asia.
 | Road - Harlow is located at junction 7 of the M11 with easy access to the UK motorway network |
 | Rail - Excellent rail connections linking Harlow to central London (30 mins), Cambridge (35 mins), London Stansted Airport (15 mins) and beyond |
 | Air - London Stansted airport offers direct, regular routes to Europe, and via connections access to the US and Asia. |
Kao Data’s leadership team is pivotal to the company’s strong foundations, rapid development and strategic forward vision:
Craig Wilson is Chairman of Kao Data and an IT industry veteran, developing and growing some of the country’s leading IT services businesses. In his 38-year career he has led EDS UK, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services UK and CSC UK. He also served as CEO of Xchanging PLC – a publicly quoted, global IT services and business process outsourcing company.
Starting his career in software engineering and IT consulting he went on to advise some of the largest companies and government departments. He now sits on a number of public and private sector boards – helping these organisations with their digital challenges. Craig is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and he holds an MBA as well as a BSc in computing.
Paul Finch is interim CEO and COO at Kao Data, providing strategic direction and oversight to the company, and policy level leadership to the European and North American data centre industries. Named by Data Economy as one of the “Top Influencers in Data Centres, Cloud and Data”, Paul is a globally respected data centre thought-leader.
During his 30-year career, Paul has played key roles at Fortune 500 corporations and publicly traded REIT's including CBRE and Digital Realty Trust, as well as an early career in engineering consultancy, advisory and project management. In total, he has overseen the creation and execution of global developments exceeding £1.0bn in capital deployment and supporting over 200MW of technical space.
Paul is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers, Voting Executive committee member of ASHRAE’s Technical Committee 9.9 (2014-2018) and a TechUK Technical Committee Member. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Building Services Engineering, a PgDip in Engineering Management and is a graduate of the General Management Programme at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School.
Gerard Thibault is Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Kao Data and he oversees the technical design and construction of all aspects of the data centre. As CTO, Gerard draws on over 40 years of experience within the electrical engineering industry and more specifically 20 years as a technical thought-leader within the international data centre sector.
Gerard joined Kao Data after an 11-year assignment at Digital Realty Trust where as Vice President of Design for the EMEA region, he had responsibility for the design and implementation of over 150MW of data centre space across 24 sites globally, including 15 new build European projects. Prior to Digital Realty Trust he held senior positions at Global Crossing and CBRE.
A Chartered Engineer having graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Gerard has also been recognised by the Uptime Institute as an Accredited Tier Designer.
Spencer Lamb is the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Kao Data. Having held previous positions at data centre companies – Infinity SDC and Verne Global, Spencer brings over 25 years of experience in data centres, high performance computing (HPC) applications, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and telco to the business.
As an influential, industry thought leader with a reputation for multi-million pound revenue creation across finance, hyperscale, life sciences, research and education, Spencer leads the sales, marketing and commercial teams in executing the company’s go-to-market strategy, which will drive new customer acquisitions furthering the expansion of its £230m, 40MW Kao Data campus and grow the portfolio’s platform.
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the United Kingdom’s leading financial services groups and a major global investor.
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the United Kingdom’s leading financial services groups and a major global investor. Over fifteen million people worldwide rely on Legal & General to help them save for the future and to protect their families and their homes.
Legal & General Capital is the principal investment arm of the Legal & General Group. Investing from Legal & General’s c. £8bn shareholder balance sheet, Legal & General Capital's purpose is to generate long-term shareholder value with a major focus on residential housing, investment in future cities (including large scale urban regeneration and clean energy) and venture capital to support the continuing development of the UK's cities.
Goldacre is an innovative family office investment house. As part of the Noé Group we leverage the scale of a £2bn asset management business with the nimbleness of a boutique.
Goldacre is an innovative family office investment house. As part of the Noé Group we leverage the scale of a £2bn asset management business with the nimbleness of a boutique. Passionate about backing businesses that drive change through technology in the real estate sector in the UK, Europe and Israel.
ISOQAR/United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)
ISO an independent, non-governmental organisation and the world leaders in developing international industry standards, essential to the efficient management and operation of critical infrastructure such as data centres. Via UKAS Kao Data has achieved accreditation and certification for:
Open Compute Project
The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a collaborative, global community focused on redesigning hardware technology to efficiently support the growing demands on compute infrastructure. Kao Data is a member of the OCP Data Centre Facility Working Group, and one of the first European data centres to achieve OCP-Ready® status. KDL1 - our first of four facilities on the campus, is listed within the global OCP Marketplace.
ServerChoice
ServerChoice are providers of secure colocation, disaster recovery and connectivity services from their three world-class resilient data centres, of which Kao Data operates as their Harlow based location. They provide retail colocation, connectivity and cloud solutions within the data centre and 24/7 on-site managed services for their retail and Kao Data’s wholesale colocation customers.
BREEAM
Delivered by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), BREEAM is the world’s leading sustainability assessment method for master-planning projects, infrastructure and buildings. Recognising our commitment to sustainability, upon its completion our first facility on the campus – KDL1 achieved BREEAM “excellence” in construction, which assesses the buildings’ energy efficiency as well as its’ environmental and sustainability competency.
TechUK
techUK is the UK’s leading technology membership organisation, with more than 850 members spread across the UK. They are a network that enables their members to learn from each other and grow in a way which contributes to the country both socially and economically. Paul Finch, Kao Data’s interim CEO and COO represents the company and wider data centre industry as a Technical Committee Member of Tech UK.
European Data Centre Association
The European Data Centre Association (EUDCA) represents the interests of the European commercial data centre operator community, both politically and commercially.
Established in 2011, the association is registered under Belgian Royal Charter and is run by its members, for its members. Kao Data has been an active member since it went operational in 2018.
Cambridge Wireless (CW)
CW is the leading international community for companies involved in the research, development and application of wireless and mobile, internet, semiconductor and software technologies. With an active community of over 1000 technology companies ranging from major network operators and device manufacturers to innovative start-ups, data centres and universities, CW stimulates debate and collaboration, harnesses and shares knowledge, and helps to build connections between academia and industry. Kao Data has been a member since 2020.
euNetworks
euNetworks is a leading provider of bandwidth infrastructure services. They own and operate 17 dense fibre based metropolitan city networks which are connected with an intercity backbone covering 51 cities in 15 countries. Their metro networks are in London, Manchester, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Paris, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Milan & Madrid. euNetworks leads the market in data centre connectivity, directly connecting over 430 in Europe today, with further data centres indirectly connected.
UK Innovation Corridor
Home to a burgeoning population and vibrant economy, this is Britain's fastest growing region. Ideas, commerce, progress – these are the building blocks on which the UK's pioneering heartland are built upon. Because where innovation thrives, people thrive.
Accentuated by London, a global finance and creative tech hub, and Cambridge, a platinum-grade knowledge hub with more patents than anywhere else in the UK, the region is uniquely knitted together with cutting-edge clusters of commercial innovation. Advanced technology, bioscience – this is the place of future-proof industry, the driving force of the UK economy.
One Nucleus
Established in 1997, One Nucleus is a not-for-profit life sciences & healthcare membership organisation centred on the Greater London-Cambridge-East of England corridor. Headquartered in Cambridge, at the heart of Europe’s largest life sciences & healthcare cluster, we support those institutions, companies and individuals undertaking activity in or with the above region.
Through providing the local, UK-wide and international connectivity, One Nucleus seeks to enable our members to maximise their performance. This support helps them achieve, or better still exceed, the goals they have set for themselves. Biomedical and healthcare R&D have always been impactful in driving social and economic progress. In an increasingly outsourced, collaborative and multi-disciplinary sector, bringing the best people together is key to translating great innovation into great products that markedly improve patient outcomes and drive economic development. Attracting and enabling the best people to engage with is at the heart of the One Nucleus team ethos and what we continually strive to deliver.
Infrastructure Masons
Infrastructure Masons is a non-profit, professional association of technology and business leaders who represent over $150Bn in infrastructure projects in over 130 countries.
The organisation is guided by an Advisory Council comprised of global leaders who manage some of the largest digital infrastructure portfolios in the world. The iMasons vision is to Unite the Builders of the Digital Age by enabling our global membership to Connect, Grow, and Give Back. Members leave their companies at the door and connect as individuals. IMasons has four strategic industry priorities - increase Awareness, enhance Education opportunities, champion Diversity & Inclusion, and promote Sustainability through meaningful member engagement.
Cambridge Network
Cambridge Network is a membership organisation based in the vibrant high technology cluster of Cambridge, UK. They bring people together – from business and academia - to meet and share ideas, encouraging collaboration, networking and partnership for shared success.
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