Data Center Construction

The Growing Need for Efficient Data Center Construction

As digital demand rises globally, data centers are being built at an unprecedented rate to support critical functions such as cloud computingCloud computing refers to the delivery of IT services, including storage, computing power, and applications, over the internet. Rather than owning and maintaining physical servers or data centers, organisations can rent access to a range of services from cloud providers. Key feat...Learn more, AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) involves the development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and natural language understanding. AI technologies include machine learning (ML), deep l...Learn more, IoTThe Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the interconnected network of physical devices, sensors, and systems that collect, transmit, and analyse data via the internet. In data centres, IoT drives demand for edge computing and real-time data processing to support applications such ...Learn more, and global digital infrastructure. For companies requiring high-performance facilities, the need for reliable, sustainable, and scalable data center infrastructure has never been more pressing. Data center construction needs to evolve to meet demand.

Traditional construction methods often struggle to meet the speed, quality, and sustainability demands of today’s data center market. Now more than ever, companies are recognizing that off-site construction offers a fast, controlled, and efficient alternative for data center construction. Maximizing off-site processes minimizes project risks and allows companies to bring new data centers online far faster and with greater certainty.

BladeRoom’s Factory-First Approach to Data Center Construction

At BladeRoom, we have redefined data center construction with our “Factory-First” approach, a process that maximizes off-site manufacturing at our 15,000m² UK campus and 120,000m² in North America. By handling most of the construction off-site, we deliver efficient, sustainable, and high-quality data center infrastructure with increased predictability and safety, reducing the risks and delays that often accompany traditional building methods.

Our expertise in off-site data center construction has been developed over years of innovation. By productizing the process and focusing on quality and efficiency, we’ve created a highly effective way to meet the increasing demand for sustainable and reliable data centers.

Why Building Data Centers Off-Site Matters

BladeRoom’s Factory-First approach to data center building treats the process as a carefully controlled production line, where off-site assembly is advanced in tandem with on-site preparation. This maximizes efficiency, allowing us to maintain high standards in every project and avoid many of the uncertainties associated with on-site construction.

Commitment to Health and Safety

We take great pride in the quality and sustainability of both the innovative technology we create and the processes we have established to meet our customers’ needs. Placing health, safety, and well-being at the heart of our culture, we embrace a ‘Safety First’ approach. Our core values acknowledge that our people are our most valuable assets, and it is our duty to safeguard them. We are committed to ensuring that employees and those impacted by our operations are protected, as far as reasonably practicable, from any risks to their health, safety, and well-being arising from workplace activities.

Our approach to building data centers prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of everyone involved. Our controlled factory environment reduces on-site risks, creating a safer and more efficient data center building process.

Risk Reduction: With most work conducted off-site, risks associated with on-site activities, such as working at height and exposure to dust, are significantly reduced.

A Culture of Safety: BladeRoom’s “Don’t Walk By” policy encourages all team members to address potential risks immediately, a commitment that has earned us consecutive RoSPA Gold Awards for world class health and safety.

Assuring Quality

The Factory-First approach enables us to productive data center construction by fabricating, assembling, and conducting thorough quality checks on every component in a controlled setting. This method allows us to deliver high-quality data center infrastructure with precision, making on-site assembly efficient and reliable.

Tens of thousands of quality assurance checks are carried out on each data center project, with thousands of lessons learnt incorporated into the process perfecting and de-risking of every single project. Our productized manufacturing approach ensures consistency of workmanship no matter what product is being built and where in the world it is being deployed. Every BladeRoom is manufactured by skilled, trained and employed professionals that build and fit out our superstructures to exact tolerances.

Comprehensive Quality Assurance: Each component undergoes thousands of quality checks, from dimensional verification to full assembly tests, to ensure it meets BladeRoom’s high standards before it arrives on site.

Consistency in Every Build: Our structured production process allows us to deliver data center infrastructure to the same exacting standards, every time, ensuring seamless on-site installation anywhere in the world.

Building Greener Data Centers

At the core of our design is the use of engineered steel structures and composite floors. This makes the overall weight of the building up to 30% less than that of an equivalent traditional ‘concrete’ facility. It also achieves the required floor loadings, further reducing weight and the use of concrete throughout.

Waste during the construction process is dramatically reduced, with zero waste during the installation process. We have the ability to track our waste; in contrast to typical construction where as much as 30% of all materials delivered can end up as waste, we achieve as little as 0.131%.

Maximizing off-site significantly reduces the amount of trades and materials required during the construction phase, reducing logistics and site congestion.

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