Dacent REIT Operations HQ and Campus
Keystone Village Campus
We’re the shape of things to come – a global, real estate developer, coordinating, aligning and synchronising digital, physical and organizational infrastructure to create a global, connected network of “Smart” developments and sustainable communities.
Our first key project, the AlphaNOC Data Centre in the Republic of Ireland, will be the heartbeat for Dacent’s future Smart real estate projects. It will be designed, built and operated as a turnkey, modular warehouse Data Centre, initially providing 30MW capacity but ultimately expanded to a fully fitted and operational 100MW hyperscale facility.
Dacent’s Operational HQ is in the Keystone Village in Cullinan, South Africa, where we are in the process of developing a work, live and play campus in a stunning natural setting surrounded by great traditional architecture, abundant wildlife and state of the art digital infrastructure. It will host an earth station linked to the AlphaNOC and supported by an in-situ MicroEdge Data Centre, which will enable the Members of the Cooperatives to access the REM Utility’s products, services and marketplaces. The Keystone Campus development will include the headquarters of the Cooperatives and separately, the back office, middle office and business incubator operations of SiiR Capital Partners.
The future is Smart growth. Additional Smart developments are scheduled in five countries in Southern Africa and eleven countries in Europe. Dacent will provide “On”, “Off” ramps (Points of Presence) to enable new users in those countries to access the products, services and marketplaces of the REM Utility.
Development of Digital Technology
The demand for Data Centres is expected to increase in the coming years and decades as development of digital technology accelerates and results in more and more bandwidth consuming devices. For example: when self-driving cars become the norm rather than the exception, data usage will soar. The same applies to artificial intelligence – more AI and more IoT, means more data. The advent of 5G also changes the equation. All in all it means more and more demand and customers for Data Centres.
The Covid-19 Pandemic
The recent pandemic has demonstrated just how we have all become more and more reliant on the internet for entertainment, social interaction, news, education, healthcare and a whole raft of new services. It has accelerated the acceptance of such platforms and applications and dramatically changed our way of life. This surge of demand comes at a huge cost to internet bandwidth, and that can only be eased with the construction of more massive Data Centres supplemented with numerous MicroEdge facilities.
Outperforming Traditional REITs
Many traditional REIT sectors, such as retail, office and hospitality REITs, struggled with lockdowns and disruptions to normal patterns of work and travel, while demand for digital services only increased. Consumers around the world shifted their focus away from in-person shopping to ecommerce. Remote work and schooling via Zoom and other platforms replaced in-person activities. Streaming movies and music elbowed out in-person movies and concerts.
Digital Habits
All of those trends not only created a massive windfall for Data Centres but also dramatically accelerated their growth dramatically as the industry coped with the new “normal” brought about by the change in people’s digital habits. The exponential growth of wireless data, cloud computing, streaming and Big Data is a rising tide lifting the global fleet of Data Centres with Ireland at the heart of this global armada.
The AlphaNOC is much more than “Our first Data Centre”. It is the mission-critical heartbeat of a much bigger vision for a connected global community of digitally-enabled real estate developments. As a standalone Data Centre it is unquestionably a viable, profitable asset that will increase in value and produce substantial profits for our shareholders. However, as the digital engine of a captive global community, we are confident it can add to those profits as our network of Smart, digitally-connected infrastructure projects expands.
The Alpha Network Operations Centre (NOC) is a turnkey, modular, 30MW warehouse Data Centre to be built in the Republic of Ireland. The purpose of the AlphaNOC and its associated MicroEdge Data Centre network, is to deliver the “REM Utility’s” digital platforms, products and services to its user base. The Data Centre is designed to be modular in order to later facilitate its easy and speedy expansion from 30MW, with users initially in Southern Africa, to a 100MW hyperscale Data Centre servicing additional users from eleven European countries, and ultimately from across the world.
The REM Utility comprises integrated physical, digital and organizational infrastructure that delivers mass collaboration platforms and marketplaces in much the same way the public gains access to water and electricity through public utilities. Services delivered include consumer and corporate marketplaces, products and services in sectors such as banking, insurance, commercial and retail transactional business, entertainment, travel, trade, education, jobs, and healthcare, in addition to conventional storage, Cloud Stack services, premium co-location facilities and hosting.
A long-term initiative aimed at building an online, virtual ecosystem that encompasses a wide range of marketplaces for both internal, systemic users and external open-market users. The priority, at least in the short term, is to fully develop the systemic marketplaces because they are so crucial to the long-term financing, designing, building and development of the AlphaNOC Data Centre and its accompanying digital platforms and ecosystems and of course our users.