Pulsant powers up the Manchester Digital Strategy with £4.5m data centre expansion

Pulsant, a leading UK provider of edge infrastructure and data centres, has cut the ribbon on its new £4.5 million data hall in Manchester and welcomed IT services leader, Dacoll as its first customer in the upgraded facility.

Rob Coupland, CEO of Pulsant, remarked: “Manchester needs infrastructure investment commitment. It is the number one tech city outside of London, and home to more than 650 active, high-growth companies. It is a top five area for scale-ups and the biggest sector in the region is software. This investment is our commitment to this area and we are focused on enabling these game-changing companies to deliver value, jobs and progress into the city and beyond. These businesses have already secured more than £530m of investment and this expanded infrastructure means they can unleash that potential.”

The expansion supports Manchester Digital Strategy’s 2026 targets for £1bn investment in digital infrastructure and a 50% increase in digital sector businesses by 2026. This latest development to the Trafford Park site is part of platformEDGE™; Pulsant's national edge strategy to equip regional businesses with the infrastructure to capitalise on new technologies such as analytics, AI and IoT.

Andrew Richmond, Enterprise Sales Director at Dacoll, said, "The Manchester facility enables us to expand our service capabilities to clients located across the North West. We are seeing increased demand from those clients to have their data located closer to their businesses because faster access means faster growth. This is backed up by their data being housed in an environment that is secure and can meet future growth requirements.”

Recent research from LINX shows that bandwidth needs in Manchester have more than doubled, going from 135 Gbps to 307 Gbps in the last 12 months. Answering this demand, the 1000m2, the Pulsant Manchester site spans four data halls with more than 400 racks, offering 1MW of power. Using Pulsant’s national data centre network and ecosystem of connectivity partners, Manchester businesses can also access global clouds, telcos and carriers via the LINX Manchester Point of Presence (POP).

Colin Peckham, LINX Interconnection Specialist says, "We continue to see growth at LINX Manchester which is fantastic. Our regional interconnection hub in the north provides a place for networks to connect and keep traffic local, lowering latency and providing an improved experience for their end users. We recently tipped the 500Gbps traffic mark at the exchange and have additional services now available like the exclusive Microsoft Azure Peering Service, adding even more value to our community connected there."

Coupland concludes: “The Greater Manchester digital economy is worth around £5bn. We are proud to be part of realising that potential. We will be watching the successes in Manchester to help us drive regional growth through better digital infrastructure elsewhere, throughout the UK.”

Pulsant’s Manchester Data Centre

Pulsant acquired M247 in Manchester in 2022 to sit at the heart of the region’s tech sector. Followed in 2023 by the launch of its platformEDGE network. Further multi-million pound investments to expand its Manchester and Rotherham facilities have followed and further plans to expand its footprint in central Manchester are already in progress.

As on-site capacity increases, Pulsant’s commitment to driving sustainable operations across its national network continues. The company’s infrastructure power consumption reduced by 9% in 2023, is set to replace fossil diesel with non-palm oil derived HVO biofuel in its standby power generators, and is committed to eliminate the use of FM200 fire suppressant gas by 2030.