Lunar Digital Purchases Equinix's Manchester Facility

UK MSP Lunar Digital has acquired a Manchester data center owned by Equinix in the upcoming months. This week, Manchester-based Lunar Digital, a provider of managed cloud, data center, and cyber security solutions, revealed that it had bought Reynolds House, a leased Equinix building formerly known as MA2 in Manchester. The agreement's terms weren't made public. The 22,500 square foot, 3 Megawatt facility, according to the business, will now be known as Lunar1 and Lunar2. As per brochures from Equinix, MA2 has a 1.5MW capacity and 20,500 square feet of colocation space spread across three levels. Local company Internet Facilitators opened the facility in 2006. After being purchased by MSP Attenda in 2007 and Telecity again in July 2010, the facility was then taken over by Equinix in 2015.

Late in 2021, Equinix announced it would leave the MA2 data center. The plant would shut down in June 2023 at the conclusion of the existing lease since the location no longer matched the company's evaluation standards. Equinix presently has five data centers in Manchester, including MA2. The facilities designated as MA1, MA2, MA3, and MA4 are all leased, according to Equinix's financial reports. Equinix declared intentions to build MA5, a new data center near Manchester, in October 2021. The first phase of the new building, which opened last year, offers 38,750 square feet of colocation space. The Salford site is anticipated to offer 69,750 square feet of colocation space when fully developed.

Lunar Digital, a subsidiary of the Lunar Group that was established just a year ago, currently runs two other data centers: the 7,000 square feet Lunar 4 in Gaupne, Norway, where cryptocurrency is also mined for the group's Lunar Blockchain division, and the Lunar 3 in east Manchester.