Driven by its vision of ‘Turkey’s data should stay in Turkey’ when it opened its Gebze-based data center in 2016, Turkcel now continues its investments in Izmir. As the one and only holder of Tier 3 certificates in the Aegean region of Turkey, which is considered a world standard for data centers, Izmir Data Center was inaugurated on June 22 with the participation of Binali Yildirim, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, and the inaugural event was hosted by Ahmet Akca, Chairman of the Board of Turkcell, and Kaan Terzioglu, Turkcell’s chief executive officer.

With this new data center, Turkcell has become Turkey’s largest data center and cloud services operator, while cementing Turkey’s goal to evolve into a global hub for data centers in the region. Holding a LEED® Gold certificate that documents green building and environmental compliance, Turkcell Izmir Data Center ranks among the most significant investments made in this field, with a white space of 2,400 sq meters and an indoor area of 14,500 sq meters. Built in accordance with international standards, the center stands out with its state-of-the-art technology, as well as with the security capabilities it offers. Turkey’s data will be stored securely at Turkcell Data Center, which is resistant against all natural disasters; particularly earthquakes, as the center utilizes domestically produced seismic isolators in its floors. The number of provinces where Turkcell invests in for next-generation data centers will reach four upon the completion of data centers planned to be opened in Ankara next year, and then in Corlu.

Delivering a speech at the inauguration, Kaan Terzioglu, Turkcell CEO, emphasized that, with Izmir, they sustain the next-generation domestic data center initiative that was kicked off in 2016 in Gebze. Terzioglu highlighted that Turkcell’s investments in next-generation data centers exceeded TRY 615 million and said: “We are excited to put Izmir Data Center into operation. We will additionally open Ankara and Corlu data centers respectively in the upcoming two years. Once they are put into operation, our total volume of investments in next-generation data centers will reach TRY 2 billion. The next-generation data center that we launch here today with an area of 14,500 sq meters will provide world-standard services in Izmir, the Aegean pearl,” said Kaan Terzioglu, CEO, Turkcell.

“We are going through an era where the source of power undergoes a change in the world. Now data is the biggest power. As a country, if we intend to have a say in the new period, we have to retain our digital data in our country and turn it into digital services through data processing. With Yaani, we have penetrated into the search engine market, which is among the services that generate the highest volume of data. Our digital services, including BiP, fizy, lifebox, TV+ and Paycell, helped us attain considerable progress in our attempt to keep Turkey’s data in Turkey. The data consumed in these Turkcell services accounts for 8.5% of the data across our own network. This percentage will increase in the upcoming period. We are Turkey’s biggest actor in the global data center market. Currently, Turkey stores up to 96% of its data abroad. We have taken significant steps towards changing this fact. Gebze and Izmir Data Centers have paved the way for a change in this landscape. As Turkey’s largest data center and cloud services operator, we will reach a total white space capacity of 37,900 sqmeters upon the kick-off of our Ankara and Corlu data centers,” he added.