by Ægir Rafn Magnússon, Director of Business Development
Iceland has been crowned the safest country in the world for the 14th consecutive year. Our Nordic Island boasts low crime rates, a stable political system, and a safe environment against the backdrop of some of the most beautiful scenery.
According to the Institute for Economics and Peace annual Global Peace Index (GPI), Iceland is the most peaceful country in the world and an ideal destination to live, work, and travel. This is based on several factors which the report takes into consideration including internal conflicts, crime rates, political stability, social welfare, natural disasters, and military build-up.
Those of us lucky enough to call Iceland home sweet home won’t be surprised. It’s long been known that Iceland benefits from some of the world’s most efficient weather patterns and hydro and geothermal energy resources. The whole country is powered by clean energy, which has tremendous benefits for businesses, both in terms of balancing cost efficiencies and meeting increasing sustainability requirements. It’s no wonder our country is fast becoming a safehouse for today’s most valuable business asset: data.
The data center industry is thriving as the balance of our consistently cool climate and sustainable power grid drives energy costs down and simultaneously reduces the carbon footprint. The use of natural cooling alone in our Icelandic data centers can generate between 24 and 31% less energy than some US and British equivalent sites. This combined with new reliable connectivity solutions that link the Nordics to mainland UK and Europe makes Iceland a safe bet for today’s digital-first organizations that depend on high-performance computing and data processing at speed. For reference, these organizations are likely to account for the vast majority of businesses today, as the digital transformation market is predicted to reach estimates between USD 3.2 billion and 8.9 trillion by 2030.
So, where does your data live and is it safe? Is it living in a location that can keep energy costs down, mitigate risks, meet sustainability KPIs, and future-proof your data needs for tomorrow? With the concern over latency and the proximity of data to the business diminishing, the Nordics are a serious – or in my mind, the only — consideration to house data-intensive workloads and applications.
We sit at a real tipping point right now amidst a cost-of-living crisis, with rapidly rising energy prices, accelerated tech innovation, and a planet emergency. Data is at the heart of everything we do in our business and personal lives – from weather simulation and AI models like ChatGPT to film production and surfing the internet, we consume data which consumes energy at an alarming rate. Data is your most valuable business asset – if you haven’t yet, it’s absolutely time to rethink your data strategy with cost, performance, and the environment at the core.