The President of Latvia visits Delska's new data center – the most sustainable in the Baltics

The President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, visited Delska’s new 10 MW data center in Riga on February 3 ahead of its official opening. During the visit, Delska’s Chairman of the Board, Andris Gailītis, and Technical Director, Rihards Kaļetovs, presented the state-of-the-art data center infrastructure and its role in enabling artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing (HPC) solutions, as well as strengthening national, regional and European digital sovereignty and security.

"Data centers located in Latvia are essential for the development of technology companies and the country's digital resilience. Therefore, it is important for the state to be aware of not only the challenges, but also the opportunities offered by data center service providers to promote Latvia's competitiveness. What we saw and discussed with company representatives today confirms that the company has far-sightedly planned not only the capacity offer of the new data center, but also worked on the construction of a sustainable and energy-efficient infrastructure to ensure continuous provision of services to its customers," said President E. Rinkēvičs after the meeting.

The new data center has already received high praise from both local and foreign industry professionals and potential clients, and is considered one of the most technologically advanced in the Baltics. The unique, modularly built 7,100 m² building in Latvia provides capacity of up to 250 kW per rack and is designed for long-term development, with the possibility of expanding the data center complex to up to 30 MW on already purchased land with reserved capacity.

During the visit, A. Gailītis also outlined the most important global trends affecting the data center industry, including the rapid development of artificial intelligence and the increasing restrictions on electricity and data center capacity in major European cities. The aggravation of electricity capacity restrictions is forcing companies to increasingly seek regions with sufficient power capacity and long-term development opportunities. In this context, the potential of both Latvia and the Baltic States as a suitable environment for the development of data centers was emphasized. The new Delska data center, the creation of which involved investments of more than 30 million euros, confirms the export potential of Latvian ICT services and the ability to attract not only local, but also international customers.

Sustainability was one of the main themes of the visit. The new data center, like Delska’s existing data centers in Latvia and Lithuania, is powered entirely by renewable energy from wind and solar farms in Northern Europe, as well as hydroelectric power plants. The backup generators run on Neste MY renewable diesel fuel, while the electricity generated during testing and maintenance is diverted to other consumers, thus reducing the environmental impact.

At the same time, Delska is negotiating with “Rīgas Siltums” about a project that involves using the heat from the data center to heat up to 25 apartment buildings. Such cooperation with the municipality promotes more efficient use of energy resources and is in line with the company's sustainable development goals.

The data center is designed and built to achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.3. This is achieved through hot air insulation, state-of-the-art free air cooling solutions, Weiss Technik Vindur® CoolW@ll systems and Trane chillers. The data center supports both air and liquid cooling solutions for high-density workloads, including AI and HPC, as well as their dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).

The data center project already received the Uptime Institute Tier III Design certification last year, and is scheduled to complete certification in March for Tier III Facility requirements, confirming that the building meets the same high accessibility standards as its design. In practice, this means that the data center is capable of providing at least 99.982% continuous uptime.

The official opening of the new Delski data center in Riga is planned for April 8, and will be attended by government officials, representatives of industry associations, customers, and project partners.

About Delska

Delska is one of the leading data center operators in Latvia and the Baltic States with over 26 years of experience in providing IT and network infrastructure. The company's services include cloud services, server rental, IT equipment colocation, network and security solutions, as well as IT infrastructure management. Delska owns six environmentally friendly data centers in Latvia and Lithuania with a total capacity of 19 MW

Information prepared by: Marija Bergere, Delska Marketing Manager