The canton of Geneva in Switzerland has announced a new data center colocation contract with nLighten.

According to the tender published by the Geneva Cantonal Office for Information Systems and Digital Technology (OCSIN), the contract agreed with the European operator’s Swiss subsidiary is valued at CHF 7.68 million ($9.9m) over a period of 10 years.

The data center in question will host OCSIN’s IT infrastructure and comply with Tier III standards of service continuity. DCD has approached OCSIN and nLighten for comment.

NLighten triumphed over two other bidders during the selection process, said OCSIN. The European operator won, said the agency, because it fully met “the technical, ecological and social requirements, the possibilities for the evolution of OCSIN’s needs, the territorial requirements, the governance requirements… as well as the best price” specified in the tender.

During the tender process, OCSIN specified that its IT infrastructure must be hosted in a “state-of-the-art” facility with high levels of energy efficiency in line with Tier III standards of data center operation.

It also said that the firm awarded the contract would have to demonstrate its potential to provide a range of services and a scalable cost model as the needs of the cantonal information agency evolve in the future.

The announcement of the award comes amid heightened cybersecurity pressure on OCSIN. Last year, Geneva’s state councillor Carole-Anne Kast revealed to Tribune de Genève that the agency had experienced a 38 percent increase in cybersecurity incidents targeting the canton, equivalent to 1.4 incidents per day.

Founded in 2023, nLighten is the digital infrastructure platform for the US investment firm I Squared Capital and boasts a portfolio of 34 facilities and 22MW of compute capacity across Europe.

The operator is already present in Geneva’s data center market, having acquired a 23,680 sq ft (2,200 square meter) facility from Exa Infrastructure in 2024. The later acquired French operator Euclyde Data Centers, taking over six facilities across the country. After acquiring a Dutch data center in Amsterdam, nLighten then acquired UK Edge firm Proximity in September, taking over a further ten facilities. It acquired another facility in Paris in February.

The data center is among 11 currently operating in Geneva, according to DataCenterMap. The market is set to expand in 2028 with the completion of a new facility by NorthC. Earlier this year, the European operator announced plans to build a 58,125 sq ft (5,400 sqm) data center with 4.5MW of IT capacity in the Hive technology park, to the northwest of the city.

Learn more about the data center market in Switzerland and the wider DACH region, and meet with other executives and experts at the DCN Zurich event later this year.