Hochtief’s Yorizon is partnering with VNClagoon (VNC) and BytesAtWork for its European “Giga-Cloud” offering.

VNC will provide its sovereign platform and software services, while BytesAtWork will bring its cloud portals to the platform.

Yorizon is a “sustainable cloud provider” established by infrastructure technology and construction services company Hochtief alongside server and storage systems manufacturer Thomas-Krenn.AG. Plans for the cloud platform were first announced in September 2024. It is set to be hosted in data centers belonging to Yexio, another of Hochtief’s companies.

“With Yorizon and VNClagoon, we are creating a connected, secure, and sustainable cloud infrastructure that will make Europe digitally independent,” said Gernot Hofstetter, co-CEO of Yorizon.

“This Giga-Cloud combines state-of-the-art data centers with a sovereign software solution that excites enterprises and authorities alike,” added Andrea Wörrlein, managing director of VNC in Berlin.

The first Yexio data center is set to be launched late in the summer of 2025, and will be located in Heiligenhaus, Germany, with other sites to follow. The company had secured land for two more data centers as of September 2024, and Hochtief signed an extension of its cooperation with the Palladio infrastructure fund from five to 15 data centers in May 2024.

The Heiligenhaus data center broke ground on March 12, 2024, and will offer an IT capacity of 2MW, expandable to 4MW if needed. It is located at the Heiligenhaus Innovation Park, and is the result of a partnership between Hochtief and Palladio Partners.

The data center will use “direct water cooling” which will improve the facility’s efficiency. It is also notable for being built using wood for the structure and the facade of the data center, intended to save and store CO2.

Heiligenhaus is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and lies between Düsseldorf and Essen. Germany’s primary data center hub is in Frankfurt, but Düsseldorf has a notable market also. Operators in Düsseldorf include Digital Realty, nLighten, Penta Infra, Equinix, and AtlasEdge.

Wooden data centers, while by no means common, have seen some interest. WoodenDataCenter constructs its data centers with wood, and last year, Microsoft used wood to construct two data centers in Northern Virginia, though also used steel and concrete at the facilities. Vertiv offers wooden data center modules made of mass timber, which launched in November 2023.