Ten is the magic number

I’ve always been a great fan of the number 10. It’s always seemed to me to be a wonderfully special couple of numbers. Individually they don’t add up to much (quite literally…!) but put them together and you can make magic. 

There were 10 commandments, not eleven. Ever since cave people realised they had 10 fingers, that number has been the basis of the world’s numerical system. 10 was the Pythagorean symbol of perfection or completeness. Excellence in education, business and even sport is generally regarded as ‘ten out of ten’ – it’s the highest score possible in Olympic competitions, for example. 

10 also has a nice resonance with my two homes – London and Barcelona. Perhaps the most famous door in the world, that of the UK Prime Minister is of course No.10, and in Barcelona, you don’t get very far without seeing a ‘Lionel Messi 10’ shirt strolling past you. 10 is the game-changer, the moment of brilliance, the high-water mark of greatness.

So, set against that context, it was all the more satisfying to see Kao Data reach yet another milestone this week – our 10th Birthday! Ten years since our Founder and Chairman, David Bloom, put his pioneering vision for a high performance data centre campus in Harlow into motion.

We marked this momentous occasion on Wednesday, in our new London HQ, with our investors, board members and a collection of our wider Kao Data team. In addition to some words from David, as well as from Vincent Gerritsen at HRL Morrison/Infratil (below), and Doug Munro at Legal and General, it was rewarding to just pause …together… for a moment and reflect on what Kao Data’s fantastic team has achieved over those ten years.

Two of Europe’s finest data centres – KLON-01 and KLON-02 in Harlow, two further high performance data centres in Slough and Northolt, plus what will become (at least for a while…) the north of England’s largest data centre in Greater Manchester. 

Add to this a magnificent range of customers from rapid-growth AI start-ups, to mission critical science and research institutes, a variety of tier-1 financial organisations and global hyperscale cloud providers. 

Across those ten years we’ve also been the first to lead the market on new industry standards for hosting hardware (we were the first European operator to become OCP-Ready), sustainability (first European operator to use HVO-fuel in our generators) and community engagement.

Coordinating all of this, our multi-award-winning team has grown to more than 40 staff members, many of whom have joined us from our competitors, and I’m writing this from the warm and inviting surroundings of our new London HQ in Liverpool Street.

While I’ve only had the privilege of leading Kao Data as its CEO for 10 (another 10!) months, I take great pleasure in being surrounded by a such a group of seriously talented, entrepreneurial, fun (!) and determined individuals who share my passion for being bold, agile, responsible, and providing something ‘different’ to the industry and our customers. It’s an infectious place to work, no two days are the same, I love Mondays and I am excited about what the future holds.

What am I most proud of? That collectively, we’ve carved out a bit of a niche in the industry. Wherever I go, people have a positive word to say about Kao Data and the team. 

We don’t try to be experts in everything, but rather embrace a culture of continuous and iterative learning, AND, know what we’re exceptional at. The team here are approachable, skilled and relentless. To continually punch-above-our weight, as we have done for years, against admittedly some very good competitors, you must be agile, bold and seriously determined.

Anyway, back to my love of all things ‘10’ - it’s a number that also often symbolises the end of a cycle and I think that is also true for Kao Data. With our new London HQ, our ground break in Manchester and our teams working on exciting plans for a variety of data centre campuses in Europe (more on this to come soon…) it feels like we’re turning a page on a new chapter in Kao Data’s evolution. 

Set against the backdrop of a massively accelerating industry, soaring demand for data centres, the burgeoning growth of AI and a newfound appreciation of the critical role that data centres play in our increasingly digital lives, there is every chance the next ten years will be even more successful than the first.

For now, I would like to share a heartfelt thank you to our customers, investors, board members, my senior management team, our Kao Data team as a whole and to all the partners, contractors and suppliers who have helped make us who we are today. 

Most of all I would like to thank David, as without his vision and entrepreneurial drive back in 2014, none of us would be celebrating this momentous achievement today.

Happy 10th Birthday, Kao Data!