February 2019 News release

PLANNING PERMISSION GRANTED FOR ECHELON DATA CENTRES’ ARKLOW DEVELOPMENT

Echelon Data Centres, a recently-launched Irish company based in Dublin, has been granted planning permission for its planned 45,000m² (484,000 sqft) facility in Arklow, Co Wicklow. The new data centre represents an investment of €500 million, will have a capacity of up to 100MW and will create 540 jobs – 450 in construction and 90 operational positions.

The development is located on the former Irish Fertilisers Industries site in Avoca Business Park, next to the M11 in Arklow, Co Wicklow, which is the subject of a substantial investment by Echelon Data Centres. The initial development phase of the project will be funded by the company and the first 35MW of capacity will be available from Q1 2021.

The potential capacity of the Arklow site – which has significant grid power available to it – is almost 20% of all operational data centre capacity currently available in Ireland and nearly 10% of that either planned or in development.1 The Echelon Data Centres facility in Arklow has the potential to be one of the largest data centres in the world, serving large companies operating in ecommerce, cloud computing, digital broadcasting, social media, telecommunications and the internet of things.

Niall Molloy, CEO of Echelon Data Centres, welcomed the decision to grant planning permission and said that the provision of customisable, scalable data centre facilities is key to the continuing growth of the Irish, and the global, digital economies.

“We’re very pleased to have been granted planning permission for the Arklow site, and we intend to begin developing it immediately. Work has already commenced on Echelon’s other site in Clondalkin and between the two Irish sites, and other locations that we are in the process of identifying and acquiring in Ireland, the UK and Europe, Echelon will become one of Europe’s largest data centre providers.”

“What our plans mean for Ireland is the creation of many high-quality jobs. The development and operation of the sites in Arklow and Clondalkin will provide employment for 1,100 people through a total capital investment of €1 billion, enhancing and supporting Ireland’s growing tech ecosystem.”

“The capacity available across our first two facilities is the equivalent of 34% of all current operational capacity available in Ireland and about 15% of all capacity in planning and development.2 This will enable us to accommodate future growth strategies for clients.

1 ‘Ireland’s data Hosting Industry Q3 2018 Update’ Bitpower.ie http://www.bitpower.ie/index.php/dashboard2 ‘Ireland’s data Hosting Industry Q3 2018 Update’ Bitpower.ie http://www.bitpower.ie/index.php/dashboard

Echelon’s hands-on and flexible approach to meeting customer requirements goes as far as offering a site identification, acquisition and development service.”

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For further information, contact The Content Partnership on +353 (0) 1 531 3532. – Craig McKechnie | craig@thecontentpartnership.ie | 087 621 8839.– Richard Burke | richard@thecontentpartnership.ie | 086 816 7822.– Jeremy Probert | jeremy@thecontentpartnership.ie | 089 700 0792

Notes to editors

Echelon Avoca is located on the former Irish Fertilisers Industries site in Avoca Business Park, next to the M11 in Arklow, Co Wicklow.

Echelon Clondalkin is located in Clondalkin Industrial Estate in Dublin, next to the M50 and close to Grange Castle and Profile Park

Echelon Data Centres is a data centre owner, developer and operator building a network of large-scale data centre campuses across Europe to meet the rapidly expanding global demand for data processing and storage solutions.

With a strategic focus on occupiers with large-scale medium and long-term requirements, Echelon offers complete solutions from powered shells to full custom fit outs.

Echelon is owned by Aldgate Developments, which has more than one million sqft of commercial development in progress in Dublin and London.

All of Echelon’s data centre sites are fully owned and our active projects are self- funded. The Data Centre Landscape:

o There were 48 data centre facilities in Ireland at the end of Q3 2018.o Hyperscaler companies account for 73% of MW capacity used.o 540MW – Irish data centre capacity operational.o 722MW in construction, in planning or on masterplan.o By 2025, the global ‘digital universe’ (the data created and copied every year)

will reach 175 zettabytes (175x1021 bytes) from 33 zettabytes today3.o This growth is driven by corporates operating in the fields of cloud computing,

ecommerce, social media, digital broadcasting and the internet of things.

More information at www.echelon-dc.com

3 ‘The Digitization of the World From Edge to Core’ November 2018, International Data Corporation https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/our-story/trends/files/idc-seagate-dataage-whitepaper.pdf