President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and Minister of Industry Katrín Júlíusdóttir opened the first Icelandic data center at Steinhella in Hafnarfjördur, a neighboring town of Reykjavík, today at noon.
An Icelandic company, Thor DC, is behind the construction of the center and its operations. Thor DC was founded by a handful of Icelandic entrepreneurs with years of experience in the IT industry, along with the participation of Icelandic venture capitalists, a press release states.
Opera Software ASA, a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers, will today sign an agreement to move a significant part of its electronic data traffic to the Thor Data Center via sub-sea cables run by the Icelandic telecommunications company E-Farice.
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, founder of Opera Software, will sign the agreement on behalf of Opera.
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, founder of Opera Software.
“The reason Opera Software came to sign an agreement with Thor Data Center is that the company can offer us energy from 100 percent renewable sources. In coming years Iceland will be able to provide a more stable supply of energy than most other areas in the world,” Stephenson von Tetzchner said.
With the expected growth of Opera products, any increased traffic in the future will be transferred through E-Farice and Thor DC. Opera Software currently has over 110 million users of its browsers across the world.
From the first day of its operations, the Thor data center promises to be the most eco-friendly data center in the world. This is possible both because of the type of technology it utilizes and because it uses only renewable energy from local sources.
The data center has secured 3.2 megawatts of electricity to be provided by HS Energy on the Reykjanes peninsula, which is extendable up to 19.2 megawatts.
Thor DC is the first data center of its kind in Iceland, and Opera Software ASA is the first foreign corporation to move its data storage facilities to the country.
Preparations for the establishment of the data center began 18 months ago.
