SSD cloud hosting solutions provider Atlantic.Net has opened its first international data centre in London.

Owned by colo Infinity, the pay-as-you-go Slough data centre will charge clients on a per second billing basis.

Atlantic.Net said the hub is its highest end data centre to date, ideal for serving start-ups and developers, as well as providing the company’s clients with an UK IT corridor.

It added that customers will be able to launch cloud servers in less than 30 seconds, backed by SSD storage and 55GBPS infiniband technology.

Marty Puranik, CEO of Atlantic.Net, told CBR: "We expect [the UK] to become our largest EMEA market. London is a premier location in the European Union."

Puranik explained that the main users of the data centre will be software developers, IT managers and web development companies.

He added that the company has seen heavy demand from London for its services, "hence this is our first expansion outside of North America".

Taking on the pricing scheme, Puranik said that it is possible to make servers and services on-demand and only pay for what is used.

"It is similar to utility billing as opposed to leasing hardware and having to pay for servers you do not use or need."

The CEO declined to reveal how much the company has invested in its UK data centre presence, but confirmed the company is planning further expansions in Britain.

He added: "For a form of cloud storage you need multiple data centres to keep copies of the data in case one is destroyed. We plan to add additional data centres to provide redundancy for the storage offering we are launching, and London will be a premier location for it."

Stuart Sutton, Infinity SDC CEO, commented: "It is a clear indication that for international organisations, London is the gateway to Europe and provides the perfect infrastructure for growth."

Infinity’s 20.000 sq mt data centre provides a standard power density of 8.5 – 10kW per rack and a chilled water cooling system gives the hub PUE of 1.22. Customers sitting in the facility include BT, Virgin Media, Level 3 and Easynet.