In 2021, following two years of intense collaboration, ClusterPower and Tema Energy completed a project that brought Romania on the global data centre map. Building the first Hyperscale data centre in Romania and Eastern Europe was a large-scale project that combined the entrepreneurial vision and energy know-how of the ClusterPower founders with the engineering skills and data centre infrastructure expertise of the Tema Energy team, and the state-of-the-art technologies offered by major manufacturers in the field.

Today, ClusterPower is the most modern technology campus in Romania, which can produce its own energy, it is energy efficient and offers the most advanced supercomputing infrastructure based on Artificial Intelligence.

About ClusterPower

Located near Craiova, on a 25,000 sqm technology campus, ClusterPower is the first DC hyperscale in Eastern Europe, certified Tier III by the Uptime Institute. Built between 2020-2021 through an investment of 45 million euros, ClusterPower integrates state-of-the-art technologies, guaranteeing the highest level of availability, resilience and energy efficiency, according to the company, having a PUE calculated at the maximum load of about 1.1.

At the same time, ClusterPower is the only Data Center in the region that has become an Nvidia CSP partner and offers an advanced infrastructure for the development of solutions that use artificial intelligence. ClusterPower offers an extensive portfolio of services, from colocation, high performance computing and cloud back-up to cloud cyber security and AI infrastructure as a service.

Through these services, ClusterPower’s customers from the most diverse fields of activity put cutting-edge technology at the service of human society development. In this respect, ClusterPower has established a centre of excellence in artificial intelligence by creating an ecosystem of partners seeking solutions to global challenges in medicine, engineering, education, etc.

The origin of the project

The ClusterPower project represents the implementation of the vision of a group of entrepreneurs who wanted to offer in Romania an IT infrastructure capable of serving the high performance computing and AI requirements of companies from anywhere in the world and have understood the long-term opportunities of investing in a Data Centre.

The conjuncture that led to the shaping of this vision was the DataCenter Forum eventÒ, where technologies, certifications, skills and human resources qualified to carry out a project of such magnitude have been identified. In 2019, after turning the vision into a coherent plan, ClusterPower obtained an investment of over 40 million euros, and the project is on track.

“The discussions at DataCenter Forum Ò with the Tema Energy integrator, but also with various technology providers and certification bodies like the Uptime Institute, have made it clear not only that our vision aligns perfectly with market opportunities, but also that we have at our disposal the technological means and the human resources necessary to turn it into reality. The market requirements have shown us that Romania needs a Hyperscal Data Centre, and Tema Energy has convinced us that it has the necessary skills to build it to the highest standards. We have managed to build together a complex platform that combines high computing power and smart digital solutions to support innovation and stimulate economic growth”

Cosmin Georgescu, CEO, ClusterPower.

The stages of collaboration with Tema Enery

The ClusterPower project had a high level of complexity, both through the large number of suppliers, as well as through the various integrated technologies and the performance standards required by the beneficiary. Working in integrated teams, the specialists and engineers of ClusterPower and Tema Energy designed, executed and delivered all the components of the project: Working in integrated teams, the specialists and engineers of ClusterPower and Tema Energy designed, executed and delivered all project components: electrical infrastructure, mechanics, air conditioning, power backup, fire extinguishing, security, anti-seismic protection, racks, monitoring solutions etc. They also managed to obtain certifications from the Uptime Institute.

Analysis and design:

The project started in May 2019 by creating a multidisciplinary team, consisting mainly of accredited Uptime Institute professionals, design engineers and installers, along with consultants from suppliers such as Schneider Electric, Vertiv, R&M, MTU and ABB. For 12 months, this team analysed a wide range of technologies and constructive solutions for building the ClusterPower infrastructure at the highest standards of efficiency and resilience, and designed in detail the electrical, mechanical and fire-fighting installations, the fibre and copper network, the physical security network, the anti-seismic system. As an additional way of validation, the proposed design has benefited from review by the Uptime Institute, the most important certification body in this industry.

Construction:

The actual construction of the first phase of the ClusterPower campus in Mischii began in August 2021 and lasted only six months. The completion of the project in such a short time represents an achievement for the beneficiary ClusterPower and the integrator Tema Energy and involved the coordination of several teams of technicians, installers, engineers and subcontractors. At the same time, the construction phase also involved overcoming some challenges generated by the topography of the location (access to transformer stations, obtaining specific approvals from utility providers, the actual delivery and installation of equipment, etc.).

Certifications:

ClusterPower was conceived from the start as a facility compliant to the most demanding standards in the field on all levels: design, construction and operation. Thus, at the same time as the works started, ClusterPower also initiated the procedure to obtain the Uptime Institute certification for Design, which was quickly obtained. In 2022, after a thorough verification process by the Uptime Institute, ClusterPower also obtained Tier III Certification (Tier Certification of Constructed Facility). The two certifications state that the design and construction of the ClusterPower Data Centre comply with the redundancy requirements of the installed power supply capacities, cooling and data processing capabilities to ensure 99.982% service availability per year.

“The ClusterPower – Tema Energy project was in the top 10% of design projects evaluated by the Uptime Institute globally on consistency of design and implementation. Usually, such certification involves multiple architectural reviews and documentation approvals, but in the case of this project only minor adjustments were required. This was the quality level of the project, justified by the multiple certifications held by the Tema Energy team.” Scott Roots, Business Development Manager, Uptime Institute.

Expansion:

The ClusterPower’s future plans include expanding the current campus by adding new computing facilities, as well as obtaining a new Uptime certification for the operational area.

“ClusterPower gathers a number of technological premieres: it is the largest regional centre of excellence in artificial intelligence and the region’s first data centre directly connected to high power energy (up to 200 MW) . All this was also possible thanks to the Tema Energy team, who handled professionally every aspect of the project, from design and execution to design and facility certifications.”

Cosmin Georgescu, CEO, ClusterPower.

Components:

• High voltage transformer station, linked to the national strategic energy system.
• 2N configuration at the electrical level, starting from the transformer stations, electrical panels and UPSs Schneider Electric brand, diesel generators, but also the distribution to the racks via BusBar, up to the PDU level – different and independent routes that guarantee continuous power supply in any conditions.
• Generators Rolls Royce Power Systems – MTU capable of running on a mixture of natural gas and up to 25% hydrogen; these generators can be converted to run on 100% green hydrogen for zero carbon footprint reduction.
• Absorption chillers for obtaining chilled water, used by the data centre air conditioning units.
• Vertiv air-conditioning units, configured in an N+1 operating mode and which can operate in Dual-Fluid mode (chilled water battery plus battery in direct detent – freon). Using the internal electricity and refrigerant production, a PUE threshold of approximately 1.1, a record level for a climate specific to Romania.
• The superior metal structure for all necessary wiring (strong currents, weak currents & FO) to ensure a superior level of versatility and independence.
• Platforms/Seismic isolators μ-Solator.
• Environment-friendly inert gas fire-fighting systems.
• R&M voice-data infrastructure with a 4N redundancy level (for each rack there are 2 copper paths and 2 fibre optic routes).
• 4 communication lines, completely independent and located diametrically opposite on the building, with direct links to the communication hubs in Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
• CCTV system made according to military standards, with over 200 HD cameras and continuous monitoring.
• DCIM solution – DC PRO by Tema Energy, customized in detail, with 3D viewing platform.

“The ClusterPower data centre integrates the most convenient technologies of the moment and complies with the most demanding constructive standards. From physical infrastructure, connectivity, utilities and resilience, to data processing and storage equipment, everything is planned, designed, executed and operated at a performance level similar to industry leaders.”

Vladimir Ester, CTO ClusterPower.

The data centre built by Tema Energy provides ClusterPower with the entire infrastructure needed to develop an extensive portfolio of unique cloud-based services and Artificial Intelligence. Also, ClusterPower became a partner in the Nvidia DGX-Ready Data Center program and was able to integrate the DGX A100 and DGX H100 processing nodes, with Netapp storage and networking Infiniband Mellanox, similar to those used to develop the Pfizer vaccine and those that Facebook uses in its own data centres.

Such an infrastructure ensures the achievement of the ClusterPower objective to offer Romania the chance to transform into a European cluster of IT and data centres and to accelerate the process of digitization of the economy and society.

“Together with Tema Energy, we have built a digital airport that will connect Romania with 750 other data centres around the globe. We have integrated the most advanced technologies in the field because we wanted to create technological capacity for the future capable of providing all partners with the necessary infrastructure to stimulate innovation and economic growth.”

Cosmin Georgescu, CEO, ClusterPower.