DENVER & LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 11, 2024--
Vantage Data Centers, a leading global provider of hyperscale data center campuses, today announced that it will open a second Zurich campus ( ZRH2 ) this summer. The highly-secure and carrier-neutral campus will provide 24MW of critical IT capacity, and when combined with Vantage’s flagship Zurich campus ( ZRH1 ), both campuses will offer customers 64MW of capacity for their computing requirements.
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This campus, the company’s 33rd globally, is located 30 kilometers north of Zurich’s City Center in Glattfelden. It is conveniently situated just over 20 kilometers from Vantage’s ZRH1 campus in Winterthur and 15 minutes from Zurich Airport.
ZRH2 will have a total of 226,000 square feet (21,000 square meters) of space for Vantage’s customers consisting of hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. It comes online as the company is seeing increased demand globally to support artificial intelligence and other high-performance computing applications.
“Zurich is a rapidly growing data center market due to its strategic central location and its global financial leadership, and we expect to continue developing in this market based on customer demand,” said David Howson, president of Vantage Data Centers, EMEA. “Across Europe and the globe, the demand for highly efficient, hyperscale data centers is booming to meet the needs of next generation applications, from powerful AI models to high-performance computing and cloud transformation. Vantage is prepared to meet that demand for current and new customers, and we look forward to opening the doors of our latest data center this summer.”
Vantage Data Centers has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions across its global portfolio by 2030 with a holistic approach to environmental sustainability. In line with the company’s “Sustainable by Design” blueprint, ZRH2 will deliver industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE) to support energy-efficient operations.
As a responsible corporate citizen who is committed to being a good neighbor, Vantage has installed air source (ASHP) and water source (WSHP) heat pumps within ZRH2. These heat pumps will convert waste heat for use to condition administrative spaces and reduce external energy use. ZRH2 will also provide waste heat to a nearby hotel and seminar center.
Additionally, ZRH2 will leverage rainwater infiltration and a green roof to minimize environmental impacts. It will feature a unique wood-finished facade, highly durable to withstand the local environment's harsh seasons and align with the look and feel of the community.
Vantage will employ more than 400 individuals during peak construction and create approximately 25 jobs to operate the campus.
To learn more about Vantage’s growing presence across EMEA, please visit: https://vantage-dc.com/data-center-locations/emea.
About Vantage Data Centers
Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world’s well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across five continents in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands .
For more information, visit www.vantage-dc.com.
Vantage Data Centers is developing 24MW ZHR2 campus located in Glattfelden just outside of Zurich, Switzerland. (Photo: Business Wire)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite news network to close Sunday, escalating a long-running feud between the broadcaster and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government as Doha-mediated cease-fire negotiations with Hamas hang in the balance.
The extraordinary order, which includes confiscating broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites, is believed to be the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet.
Al Jazeera went off Israel’s main cable provider in the hours after the order. However, its website and streaming links across multiple online platforms still operated Sunday.
The network has reported the Israeli-Hamas war nonstop since the militants' initial cross-border attack Oct. 7 and has maintained 24-hour coverage in the Gaza Strip amid Israel's grinding ground offensive that has killed and wounded members of its own staff. While including on-the-ground reporting of the war's casualties, its Arabic arm often publishes verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region, drawing Netanyahu's ire.
“Al Jazeera reporters harmed Israel’s security and incited against soldiers,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It’s time to remove the Hamas mouthpiece from our country.”
Al Jazeera issued a statement vowing it will “pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public’s right to information.”
“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law,” the network said. “Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to cover, whilst more than 140 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war on Gaza.”
Israeli media said the order allows Israel to block the channel from operating in the country for 45 days.
The Israeli government has taken action against individual reporters over the decades since its founding in 1948, but broadly allows for a rambunctious media scene that includes foreign bureaus from around the world, even from Arab nations. That changed with a law passed last month, which Netanyahu's office says allows the government to take action against a foreign channel seen as “harming the country.”
Immediately after the announcement, Al Jazeera's English arm began broadcasting a prerecorded message from one of its correspondents from a hotel the channel has used for months in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to one day have for their future state.
“They're also banning any devices — that includes my mobile phone,” correspondent Imran Khan said. "If I use that to do any kind of newsgathering, then the Israelis can simply confiscate it.”
The ban did not appear to affect the channel’s operations in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, where Israel wields control but which are not sovereign Israeli territory.
The decision threatens to heighten tensions with Qatar at a time when the Doha government is playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza, along with Egypt and the United States.
Qatar has had strained ties with Netanyahu in particular since he made comments suggesting that Qatar is not exerting enough pressure on Hamas to prompt it to relent in its terms for a truce deal. Qatar hosts Hamas leaders in exile at a political office in Doha.
The sides appear to be close to striking a deal, but multiple previous rounds of talks have ended with no agreement.
In a statement Sunday, Hamas condemned the Israeli government order, calling on international organizations to take measures against Israel.
Shortly after the government's decision, Cabinet members from the National Unity party criticized its timing, saying it “may sabotage the efforts to finalize the negotiations and stems from political considerations.” The party said that in general, it supported the decision.
Israel has long had a rocky relationship with Al Jazeera, accusing it of bias. Relations took a major downturn nearly two years ago when Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
Those relations further deteriorated following the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas on Oct. 7, when the militant group carried out a cross-border attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Since then, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed over 34,000 people, according to local health officials there, who don't break figures down into civilians and combatants.
In December, an Israeli strike killed an Al Jazeera cameraman as he reported on the war in southern Gaza. The channel’s bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, was wounded in the same attack. Dahdouh, a correspondent well-known to Palestinians during many wars, later evacuated Gaza but only after Israeli strikes killed his wife, three of his children and a grandson.
Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting bloody scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of massacres.
Israel accuses Al Jazeera, funded by Qatar's government, of collaborating with Hamas. Criticism of the channel is not new, however. The U.S. government singled out the broadcaster during America’s occupation of Iraq after its 2003 invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and over airing videos of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
Al Jazeera has been closed or blocked by other Mideast governments. Those include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain during a yearslong boycott of Doha by the countries amid a yearslong political dispute that ended in 2021.
In 2013, Egyptian authorities raided a luxury hotel used by Al Jazeera as an operating base after the military takeover that followed mass protests against President Mohammed Morsi. The channel was apparently targeted over its constant coverage of Muslim Brotherhood protests over Morsi’s ouster.
Three Al-Jazeera staff members, Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed received 10-year prison sentences, but were released in 2015 following widespread international criticism.
Gambrell reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem contributed.
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel on Oct. 28, 2023. Netanyahu pledged Tuesday, April 30 to launch an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the almost 7-month-long war, just as cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to be gaining steam. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
