Iceland.
Thoughts of bargain supermarket frozen turkey twizzlers, Viking epics, alternative rock band The Sugarcubes, may all be triggered when naming this barren and volcanic North Atlantic island nation.
But soon Iceland may also be known as a world centre for International Datacenter operations. According to PWC, abundant geothermal energy, generous tax incentives for the industry, and plenty of submarine optic fibre connecting it to the USA and UK, make it the most competitive location to stick your servers.
The trend towards siting the massive centralised computing resources which support “Web 2.0” close to sources of cheap power and good Internet connectivity is well documented. So far in October George Gilder wrote of ”The Information Factories” in Wired, and in Hi-Tech Scotland mag columnist Colin Walker wrote of the power supply issue for IT datacentres in an article which reflected many of the ideas and data points in my post on Renewable Energy Datacentres.
Iceland and The Scottish Highlands and Islands have much in common - both are geographically remote with a population of about 300,000, both have abundant cheap energy potential (Scotland with 25% of Europes renewable capacity, and Iceland with Volcanoes and geothermal energy plants). Both are unable to fully capitalise on their energy generation capacity, because they can't efficiently transmit the power to major points of energy consumption. In Rekjavik , they have so much energy they even heat the pavements.
However, Iceland has a vision to drive investment in the Internet infrastructure required to capitalise on their natural resources, including investment in the dark fibre required to ensure they are not an Internet backwater like the Scottish Highlands and Islands area. In addition to the existing FARICE connection to the UK via the Faroes and Orkney, those wealthy Icelanders are making the appropriate investment in capacity to link themselves to Europe and the USA through Northern Ireland. http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/documents/8607-IcelandPR-JSAFinal.pdf
Upgrading Scotlands more remote regions Internet connectivity would not only help the Scottish Government reach its broadband penetration objectives, but would take advantage of our natural assets to support ventures in a new growth industry. Further sighted governments such as that of Iceland understand this opportunity, and are making the appropriate investment.
Scotland has an advantage over Iceland as a datacenter location - Iceland is a dangerous place to be in geographic terms. Just over 200 years ago a volcanic eruption killed 20% of Icelands population. The ex-citizens of Pompei, South Washington state (nr Mount St. Helens), Sumatra and Java might have strong opinions on where to place datacentres to offer best business continuity.