Norwegian browser firm Opera has become Iceland’s first foreign data center customer.

 

It has committed to moving a large portion of its traffic to the Thor Data Center – the island’s first data center - at Hafnarfjörður, the third largest city in Iceland. 

 

Founded by a group of local VCs, Thor is the first of several data centers aiming to cash in on the island’s frozen climate and readily available geothermal energy.

 

Opera, which has 110 million customers worldwide, will direct future traffic growth through the Thor center using cable capacity from local telco E-Faric.

Thor began building the data center 18 months ago, and says it was able to quickly roll it out by using modular “data containers” from Spanish firm AST Global. The data center takes advantage of the country’s frozen climate to run without chillers for air-conditioning.

 

Thor Data Center has lined up a 3.2 MW power supply HS Energy on the Reykjanes peninsula, with an option to expand this to 19.2 MW if needed.

 

Opera co-founder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner said the prime reason for moving to the new center was because “the company can offer us energy from 100% renewable sources. In coming years Iceland will be able to provide a more stable supply of energy than most other areas in the world.”

 

Thor pitches itself as the world’s “most eco-friendly data center” because of its low-energy operation and because it is powered from renewable sources. It says it has further deals in the pipeline from foreign customers.