Estonia, Good for Business, Industrial Parks, Innovations, Investments, Technology
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Tuesday, 23.04.2024, 19:45
Estonia: EUR 10 mln computing center being developed at Enefit Tehnoloogiapark
The facility with a capacity of four megawatts that cost 10 mln
euros to build is currently undergoing equipment tests and is scheduled to
become operational in the coming months, the company announced on Monday.
Vitali Pavlov, chief product officer at Burfa Tech,
described the operation of a computing center as a new line of business for the
company that is aimed at providing various cloud services on the global
marketplace. The computing center will provide customers with cloud computing,
graphical rendering, artificial intelligence and machine learning services.
With an estimated average electricity consumption of 30
gigawatt-hours per year, Burfa's Narva facility will be a major
electricity consumer in Estonia and one of the top 25 industrial electricity
customers of Estonia. The computing center's electricity consumption will be in
the same magnitude as the annual electricity consumption of the entire Polva
town or the household electricity consumption of the town of Rakvere.
"We came up with the idea of setting up our own
high-performance computing center back in 2017. In parallel, we studied project
development opportunities in Iceland, the USA and Russia, as well as here in
Estonia. During these preparations we started to communicate with Enefit
Technology Park. Before breaking ground we prepared the project very
carefully," Ivan Turogin, member of the board of Burfa Tech OU
said.
"The location of our data center will naturally give us
some competitive advantages -- firstly, the center is located in the guarded
territory of the Balti Power Plant that guarantees high security, which is one
of the basic requirements of our customers, and, secondly, we receive
significant cost savings from the network fee," Turogin added.
According to Jaanus Rattur, member of the board of Enefit
Energiatootmine, the Enefit Technology Park has been developed primarily
for customers with high energy consumption in order to give companies located
in the power plant's territory a significant competitive advantage by saving on
network charges. At the same time, a major electricity consumer enables the
power plant to plan its load more accurately, said Rattur.
While companies of Burfa Group have previously
managed similar computing centers in China and Iceland as test projects, the
company is currently planning to consolidate most of its capacities in Narva.
Describing Enefit as a very reliable partner, Turogin
said that compared to Iceland, Narva offers a more attractive business climate
and cooperation on the level of local authorities, with a competitive energy
price.
For Burfa Tech, key customers of the new Narva data
processing center will be medium-sized multinational companies. The company's
all customers are from outside Estonia and most of the center's capacity is
already covered by existing contracts.
Burfa Tech's data processing center in Narva deploys
AI monitoring and remote control systems that, among others, monitor building
temperature, humidity and fire safety. In addition, AI also monitors and
controls electrical safety. To ensure the safety of the equipment, modern gas
extinguishing and smoke extraction systems have been installed in the key
premises of the computing center. The company funded the development project
from own funds, and the payback period is about three years depending on market
conditions.
Burfa Tech OU provides cloud and IT development
services by deploying blockchain technologies. In addition, the company is
building data processing and storage centers, involving leading staff of
Estonian research institutions.
The parent company of Burfa Tech, Burfa Capital OU,
belongs to Ivan Turogin and Sergei Potapenko who are also members
of the board of Burfa Tech. Burfa Tech formerly operated under the name
of Hashcoins, but the company's name was changed this year as part of a
rebranding launched by the holding group in connection with the expansion of
business areas from the cryptocurrency mining and the development and sale of
related technical solutions and services.
At present Burfa Tech employs 33 people and the
volume of the company's assets is 16.4 mln euros. Its revenue in 2018 amounted
to 17.8 mln euros and net profit to 10.6 mln euros.