Kao Data: Harlow Campus

Kao Data's Harlow campus sits on London Road in Harlow, Essex, inside the Harlow Enterprise Zone on the London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor, about five minutes from M11 Junction 7.

Land and planning

• The original 15-acre campus occupies part of Kao Park, the former Standard Telephones and Cables (later Nortel Networks) research laboratories where Charles Kao pioneered fibre optic communication in 1966.
• Four buildings are consented under the London Road South Local Development Order.
• In March 2025 Kao, through its subsidiary KD 6 Ltd, filed an LDO compliance application (HW/LDOC/25/00366) to extend the campus north onto Plot F of Harlow Innovation Park. The plot covers about 4 ha. Landowner Powerrapid Ltd had already confirmed data centre use there in 2023 (HW/LDOC/23/00271). The plans add two buildings plus a substation with ancillary offices.

Ownership
Kao Data is backed by Infratil (majority holder since its 2021 investment), Legal & General Capital and Goldacre (Noé Group).

Shared infrastructure

• UK Power Networks supplies 43.5 MVA over three 33 kV circuits, laid along a 5.1 km route to an on-campus 33 kV primary substation.
• Power is distributed at 11 kV, with dual feeds to each building and N+1 11 kV generators running on hydrotreated vegetable oil.
• The Plot F masterplan adds a new substation and two new HV supplies.
• Downing Renewable Developments is building a 40 MW solar farm that will supply the campus by private wire under a long-term PPA. Grid electricity is 100% renewable, backed by REGOs.

Customers and milestones

• Customers include Ori, which opened its first UK cloud region here, plus 20i, Arm and Nebius, which signed a 10-year capacity agreement in June 2026.
• ServerChoice and Kyndryl run colocation inside the first building.
• Kao also partners with Jisc to give UK academia access to the campus.
• The first building was the first OCP Ready data centre in the UK. It also holds the Uptime Institute Management and Operations Stamp of Approval (2021).
• All buildings are designed to BREEAM Excellent and NVIDIA DGX-Ready standards.