Liberty Global and Digital Colony to Develop Edge Data Centers in Europe

Edge Data Centers

UK-based converged video, broadband and communications company, Liberty Global and U.S.-based Digital Colony, an investment firm dedicated to digital infrastructure, announced on Friday the creation of AtlasEdge Data Centres, a European Edge data center business.

AtlasEdge will deliver services via an extensive network of facilities located close to consumer and enterprise end users, the “edge” of the network.

In addition, the company aims to serve the growing demand from cloud providers, streaming services, and enterprises for high-performance, scalable and secure facilities through which they can distribute low-latency applications and services such as 5G, gaming, IOT and edge compute.

As data traffic grows and gravitates to the edge of the network, AtlasEdge’s ability to access edge connectivity and efficiently distribute mission-critical and content-heavy data traffic will be increasingly relevant.

The receipt of customary regulatory and merger control approvals are factors that determine the creation of the proposed JV. Liberty Global and Digital Colony expect the transaction to close in Q3 2021.

“Combining Liberty Global’s technical real estate and track record in building successful, sustainable businesses with Digital Colony’s expertise in digital infrastructure investment creates an exciting platform for growth that will deliver long-term value,” Mike Fries, CEO Liberty Global said in a joint statement.

He added that “The proposed joint venture presents significant growth opportunities as we look to build this business into a leading European edge data center operator. Furthermore, since several of our operating companies will become anchor tenants, Liberty Global customers will also benefit from better and more responsive services.”

As such, Liberty Global will contribute digital infrastructure assets, including its technical real estate portfolios, at levels consistent with European digital infrastructure valuations, highlighting the strong underlying value embedded in its businesses.

The company will also provide strategic and operational support to the business, while Digital Colony will provide operating expertise, strategic direction, and capital to support the significant growth and consolidation opportunity in edge co-location services across Europe.

We are excited to be partnering with Liberty Global on the development of AtlasEdge,” adds Marc Ganzi President and CEO of Colony Capital and CEO of Digital Colony. “The proposed joint venture will unlock the growth potential of Liberty’s digital real estate holdings and capitalize on the emerging demand we are seeing for edge compute across Europe.

AtlasEdge will be supported by anchor tenancies from Liberty Global operating companies in four European countries: Virgin Media in the UK and in Ireland, Sunrise-UPC in Switzerland and UPC in Poland. With unprecedented local reach into consumers and businesses, AtlasEdge will provide infrastructure services to third parties at the edge with a focus on performance, low-latency, scalability, and quality of experience.