CRA chief executive Miloš Mastnik talked with Proactive about the development of Prague Gateway DC, a new large-scale data centre project in the Czech Republic.
Mastnik explained that the facility will be unique in the region, offering a size and capacity unmatched within a 450km radius of Prague, with the nearest comparable facility located in Frankfurt. The Prague Gateway DC will have a capacity of 26MW and space for over 2,000 racks.
Mastnik said: “It’s a unique construction in this region. As I said, there’s nothing like that that can be compared to this size.” He added that the project addresses rising demand for large-scale data capacity, which until now had been unmet in the Czech Republic and surrounding markets.
The chief executive confirmed that construction has already begun following the granting of zoning and building permits, with ground-breaking recently celebrated alongside the Minister of Industry and Trade. He noted that demand for secure, well-connected, and power-resilient facilities is rising across Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting the same drivers seen globally.
Mastnik highlighted how the Prague Gateway DC supports CRA’s wider infrastructure strategy under Cordiant Digital Infrastructure, while also linking to the AI Gigafactory initiative in Europe. He added that CRA has already started providing GPU-as-a-service, underscoring its focus on AI and next-generation technologies.
Proactive: Hello, you're watching Proactive. I'm joined by Miloš Mastnik, he's chief executive of CRA. Miloš very good to speak with you. Could you start by telling us what Prague Gateway DC is and why it's significant?
Miloš Mastnik: It's a data centre, which comes from the DC, of course, but it's significant because in this particular region, there is nothing like that. No construction of this kind of size, I guess from the perimeter of 450km from the center of Prague. It's nothing like that. I guess the nearest one would be Frankfurt, which is 500km, and the size is 26MW and it should host over 2000 racks.
It's important, because what was happening from time to time, that there were demands coming to the Czech Republic for 500 racks, for example, or bigger or 1MW or bigger demands. And we were not able not only us, but competing companies to host such a demand, and it's a pity we don't want that to end up in Germany, Poland, Austria. That's why we are building this facility. That should be the biggest data centre in this particular region.
Proactive: What does the timeline for the project look like, and what stage are you currently at?
Miloš Mastnik: We are extremely happy that we have overcome all the hurdles and obstacles, which is the zoning permit, construction permits, and all those details. And we have actually already started. We have broken the ground. There was an opening ceremony last week, together with the Minister of Industry and Trade, and the work is already ongoing. So we are very excited about the project.
Proactive: Miloš demand for data centres is growing globally. What's driving the need in Central and Eastern Europe? And how does Prague Gateway DC address that?
Miloš Mastnik: I think it's in principle, it's exactly the same motivation as all over the world. So the companies are just looking for secure place. They look for high-speed connectivity and they look for enough power. And that's basically it. I think we are a little bit behind the trends in Western Europe, but you can see that the trends are exactly the same.
So the companies are realising that having the servers in, you know, under their desks in the office is not really the way you should have it. It should be really in a secure place from both. I mean, the physical and also the cybersecurity. So these are the main drivers.
Proactive: How does Prague Gateway DC fit into CRA’s wider portfolio and the support of Cordiant Digital Infrastructure?
Miloš Mastnik: It perfectly fits, actually, our strategy and our current activities because we are an infrastructure-based company and the entirety of Cordiant is based on infrastructure. We've been in the data centre business for more than ten years and we are utilising our current assets. We have many towers, a lot of land that we can utilise. So, actually, this one is a brownfield.
We are transferring existing businesses on the current location. There were three AM antennas, and they were replaced by the construction. And as I said, we are already running eight such facilities in the country. The biggest one is downtown Prague, that currently is able to host about 700 racks. But within the group, we operate the data centre, Hudson Inter Exchange in New York, Manhattan. We operate, I guess, six or eight data centres in Belgium. So this is exactly the way we want to go: data centres, cloud connectivity and broadcasting. That's the core business.
Proactive: There's mention of the AI Gigafactory initiative. Can you explain how Prague Gateway connects to that vision?
Miloš Mastnik: Yeah, we as a country and together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we have the ambition that one of those four or five gigafactories that should be developed within Europe would be here in Prague. And logically, as we do have the advantage of having the land, power that can be in the future extended from the current 26MW to probably over 100MW.
And that makes sense. You know, in Brussels, I guess at this moment there is over 70 applications, but most of those are just paperwork. But here it's a physical construction ongoing. So we do have the advantage of time. And as I said, we have the ambition that one of the gigafactory centers would be here. And we also do have already experience with AI because we have started to provide GPU as a service already as a company. So we are focusing on AI ourselves at the moment.
Proactive: Finally Miloš what should clients and stakeholders take away from this development?
Miloš Mastnik: I think number one, it's a unique construction in this region. As I said, there's nothing like that that can be compared to this size. Of course, as it's done at this moment, it will be brand new using the newest technologies. That means the lowest PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) — that's the efficiency that actually measures the efficiency of data centers. And of course, it's a hybrid cooling.
You are able to host servers that don't need the current capacity of, I don't know, five kilowatts, but we will be able to pool 30, 50, maybe 100kW in the future. And the opportunity at this moment is that if you come now, we can kind of tailor-make part of the DC for a potential client. That's pretty obvious.
Proactive: Miloš, I hope you'll keep us updated on progress with the data center. So thank you very much for speaking with us today.