Lord Mayor of London visits aql Leeds
aql were honoured to receive a visit from the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Roger Gifford, on Friday, 11 January2013 at their Salem Church headquarters in Leeds city centre.
The visit came as part of a two-day trip to northern England, with the Lord Mayor visiting Leeds due to the city’s status as the UK’s second largest financial centre after London.
As the representative of the City of London and UK business both domestically and abroad, the Lord Mayor visited to hear about aql’s newest data centre, DC4, and their plans to underpin Leeds’ Internet infrastructure for the benefit of businesses in Leeds and the UK as a whole.
After visiting the Bank of England offices in Leeds the Lord Mayor attended a meeting at Salem Church with aql CEO and founder, Dr Adam Beaumont, to discuss aql’s plans for the future and to take a tour of two of aql’s independent, carrier neutral data centres.
The Lord Mayor of London heard plans regarding aql’s forthcoming data centre, DC4, which will be the largest independent data centre outside London, and will be a high-security data storage facility suitable for disaster recovery measures for businesses operating within the City of London.
The potential for DC4 to act as a catalyst for the improvement of Leeds’ Internet infrastructure and connection speeds within the City means that Leeds can become independent of London, benefitting both cities and allowing Leeds to act as a failover for London based financial infrastructure.
“A failure in London docklands infrastructure would have minimal impact on UK plc if a Leeds-failover strategy were supported. A viable solution is on the horizon in the shape of DC4“, said Dr Beaumont. “Already many London-based financial institutions have their second presence in Leeds so it makes perfect sense to house their secondary IT infrastructure in Leeds too.“
The Lord mayor also learned more of IXLeeds: Leeds’ own independent Internet exchange, which is based in one of aql’s data centres and has helped to establish Leeds as one of the UK’s best connected cities.
Adam said of the visit: “It was an honour for everyone at aql to receive both the Lord Mayor and Sherriff of London. Both aql and Leeds City Council share an aggressive plan of growth and we are pleased our plans for the future are making an impact on a national scale.
“The Lord Mayor was given some clear messages to take back to his office and relay to other parties he’ll be meeting with over his campaign in 2013, not only within the City of London and the UK, but also internationally.
“Events such as this show the importance of the work being done by aql and IXLeeds to improve Leeds’ Internet and communication infrastructure. London is one of the leading global financial centres and Leeds is the second largest financial hub in the UK. Leeds now has the connectivity and infrastructure to increase the resilience and robustness of the UK financial system.”
