The Casino Group is pushing ahead with its asset monetisation strategy by forming a strategic partnership with Qarnot computing, covering the installation and operation of new-generation datacentres in the Group’s warehouses and storerooms.
The venture will generate additional revenue for the Casino Group through the rental of available space and the supply of power required to run the data centres, via its GreenYellow subsidiary. There are also plans to reuse the heat from the servers to heat the buildings housing the data centres (i.e., stores and warehouses), which will create savings at a time of rising energy costs.
The data centres will be operated by ScaleMax, a company jointly owned by the Casino Group and Qarnot computing.
The first data centre will begin operating in the first quarter of 2019, at a Cdiscount logistics warehouse located in the Greater Paris region. Some 20 additional sites are expected to be fitted out by 2023, coinciding with significant growth in the high-performance computing market.
“ScaleMax provides our clients with France-wide access to high-performance computing capacity that is sustainable and secure and can be rapidly deployed on a very large scale. This project is a naturalextension of Qarnot’s ‘Compute Anywhere’ vision of scalable, environmentally responsible infrastructure. Qarnot is expanding, in line with our strategy, to provide a sustainable response to the strong demand for computing power” says Paul BENOIT, CEO of Qarnot.
“ScaleMax represents an opportunity for the Casino Group to make better use of the surface area in our warehouses and storerooms while redeploying environmentally friendly energy with our GreenYellow subsidiary, in a forward-looking market experiencing significant growth worldwide” saysMartin CALMELS, the Casino Group’s Head of Innovation.
* Primarily banks, insurers, 3D animation studios, research centres, pharmaceutical labs, manufacturers, and companies involved in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
