As of November 2025, there were a reported 4,165 data centers in the United States, the most of any country worldwide. A further 499 were located in the United Kingdom, while 487 were located in Germany. What is a data center? Data centers are facilities designed to store and compute vast amounts of data efficiently and securely. Growing in importance amid the rise of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, data centers form the core infrastructure powering global digital transformation. Modern data centers consist of critical computing hardware such as servers, storage systems, and networking equipment organized into racks, alongside specialized secondary infrastructure providing power, cooling, and security. AI data centers Data centers are vital for artificial intelligence, with the world’s leading technology companies investing vast sums in new facilities across the globe. Purpose-built AI data centers provide the immense computing power required to train the most advanced AI models, as well as to process user requests in real time, a task known as inference. Increasing attention has therefore turned to the location of these powerful facilities, as governments grow more concerned with AI sovereignty. At the same time, rapid data center expansion has sparked a global debate over resource use, including land, energy, and water, as modern facilities begin to strain local infrastructure.

ESYS plc and the Department of Geomatic Engineering at University College London (UCL) have been funded by the British National Space Centre (BNSC) to develop a web GIS service to serve geographic data derived from remote sensing datasets. Funding was provided as part of the BNSC International Co-operation Programme 2 (ICP-2).

Particular aims of the project were to:

1. use Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC, recently renamed from the OpenGIS Consortium) technologies for map and data serving;

2. serve datasets for Europe and Africa, particularly Landsat TM and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) data;

3. provide a website giving access to the served data;

4. provide software scripts, etc., and a document reporting the data processing and software set-up methods developed during the project.

ICEDS was inspired in particular by the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) CEOS Landsat and SRTM Project (CLASP) proposal. An express intention of ICEDS (aim 4 in the list above) was therefore that the solution developed by ESYS and UCL should be redistributable, for example, to other CEOS members. This was taken to mean not only software scripts but also the methods developed by the project team to prepare the data and set up the server. In order to be compatible with aim 4, it was also felt that the use of Open Source, or at least 'free-of-cost' software for the Web GIS serving was an essential component. After an initial survey of the Web GIS packages available at the time , the ICEDS team decided to use the Deegree package, a free software initiative founded by the GIS and Remote Sensing unit of the Department of Geography, University of Bonn , and lat/lon . However the Red Spider web mapping software suite was also provided by IONIC Software - this is a commercial web mapping package but was provided pro bono by IONIC for this project and has been used in parallel to investigate the possibilities and limitations opened up by using a commercial package.

http://iceds.ge.ucl.ac.uk/

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Countries, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BSC) Super Generalised (200m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BSC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BSC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BSC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Countries, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Countries_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Regions in England as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BGC/MapServer

[From The Landmap Project: Introduction, "http://www.landmap.ac.uk/background/intro.html"]

 A joint project to provide orthorectified satellite image mosaics of Landsat,
 SPOT and ERS radar data and a high resolution Digital Elevation Model for the
 whole of the UK. These data will be in a form which can easily be merged with
 other data, such as road networks, so that any user can quickly produce a
 precise map of their area of interest.

 Predominately aimed at the UK academic and educational sectors these data and
 software are held online at the Manchester University super computer facility
 where users can either process the data remotely or download it to their local
 network.

 Please follow the links to the left for more information about the project or
 how to obtain data or access to the radar processing system at MIMAS. Please
 also refer to the MIMAS spatial-side website,
 "http://www.mimas.ac.uk/spatial/", for related remote sensing materials.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties, in England, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Combined Authorities, in England, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BFC) Full resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Combined_Authorities_December_2022_EN_BFC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Combined_Authorities_December_2022_EN_BFC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Combined_Authorities_(December_2022)_EN_BFC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties, in England, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BFC) Full resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Regions in England as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BFE/MapServer

The GEBCO_2023 Grid is a global continuous terrain model for ocean and land with a spatial resolution of 15 arc seconds. In regions outside of the Arctic Ocean area, the grid uses as a base Version 2.5.5 of the SRTM15_plus data set (Tozer, B. et al, 2019). This data set is a fusion of land topography with measured and estimated seafloor topography. Included on top of this base grid are gridded bathymetric data sets developed by the four Regional Centers of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. The GEBCO_2023 Grid represents all data within the 2023 compilation. The compilation of the GEBCO_2023 Grid was carried out at the Seabed 2030 Global Center, hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, UK, with the aim of producing a seamless global terrain model. Outside of Polar regions, the Regional Centers provide their data sets as sparse grids i.e. only grid cells that contain data are populated. These data sets were included on to the base using a 'remove-restore' blending procedure. This is a two-stage process of computing the difference between the new data and the base grid and then gridding the difference and adding the difference back to the existing base grid. The aim is to achieve a smooth transition between the new and base data sets with the minimum of perturbation of the existing base data set. The data sets supplied in the form of complete grids (primarily areas north of 60N and south of 50S) were included using feather blending techniques from GlobalMapper software. The GEBCO_2023 Grid has been developed through the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. This is a collaborative project between the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO). It aims to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all. Funded by the Nippon Foundation, the four Seabed 2030 Regional Centers include the Southern Ocean - hosted at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany; South and West Pacific Ocean - hosted at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand; Atlantic and Indian Oceans - hosted at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, USA; Arctic and North Pacific Oceans - hosted at Stockholm University, Sweden and the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, USA.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Regions in England as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BSC) Super Generalised (200m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BSC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BSC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Regions_December_2024_Boundaries_EN_BSC/MapServer

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Covid Infection Survey Geography, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2020.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Covid_Infection_Survey_Dec_2020_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Covid_Infection_Survey_Dec_2020_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Covid_Infection_Survey_Dec_2020_UK_BGC/MapServer

The GEBCO_2022 Grid is a global continuous terrain model for ocean and land with a spatial resolution of 15 arc seconds. In regions outside of the Arctic Ocean area, the grid uses as a base Version 2.4 of the SRTM15_plus data set (Tozer, B. et al, 2019). This data set is a fusion of land topography with measured and estimated seafloor topography. Included on top of this base grid are gridded bathymetric data sets developed by the four Regional Centers of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. The GEBCO_2022 Grid represents all data within the 2022 compilation. The compilation of the GEBCO_2022 Grid was carried out at the Seabed 2030 Global Center, hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, UK, with the aim of producing a seamless global terrain model. Outside of Polar regions, the Regional Centers provide their data sets as sparse grids i.e. only grid cells that contain data are populated. These data sets were included on to the base using a remove-restore blending procedure. This is a two-stage process of computing the difference between the new data and the base grid and then gridding the difference and adding the difference back to the existing base grid. The aim is to achieve a smooth transition between the new and base data sets with the minimum of perturbation of the existing base data set. The data sets supplied in the form of complete grids (primarily areas north of 60N and south of 50S) were included using feather blending techniques from GlobalMapper software. The GEBCO_2022 Grid has been developed through the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. This is a collaborative project between the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO). It aims to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all. Funded by the Nippon Foundation, the four Seabed 2030 Regional Centers include the Southern Ocean - hosted at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany; South and West Pacific Ocean - hosted at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand; Atlantic and Indian Oceans - hosted at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, USA; Arctic and North Pacific Oceans - hosted at Stockholm University, Sweden and the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, USA.

Forest Ecosystem Dynamics (FED) Project Spatial Data Archive: Elevation Contours for the Northern Experimental Forest

The Biospheric Sciences Branch (formerly Earth Resources Branch) within the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and associated University investigators are involved in a research program entitled Forest Ecosystem Dynamics (FED) which is fundamentally concerned with vegetation change of forest ecosystems at local to regional spatial scales (100 to 10,000 meters) and temporal scales ranging from monthly to decadal periods (10 to 100 years). The nature and extent of the impacts of these changes, as well as the feedbacks to global climate, may be addressed through modeling the interactions of the vegetation, soil, and energy components of the boreal ecosystem.

The Howland Forest research site lies within the Northern Experimental Forest of International Paper. The natural stands in this boreal-northern hardwood transitional forest consist of spruce-hemlock-fir, aspen-birch, and hemlock-hardwood mixtures. The topography of the region varies from flat to gently rolling, with a maximum elevation change of less than 68 m within 10 km. Due to the region's glacial history, soil drainage classes within a small area may vary widely, from well drained to poorly drained. Consequently, an elaborate patchwork of forest communities has developed, supporting exceptional local species diversity.

This data layer contains elevation contours for the 10 X 10 km area located within the Northern Experimental Forest. Contours and elevation benchmarks from the United States Geological Survey 7.5" Maine quadsheets for Howland and Lagrange were digitized, and elevation data in feet were added.

The data was revised by projecting it into NAD83 datum by L. Prihodko at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Although the data was received at GSFC with an undeclared datum, it was assumed to be in North American Datum of 1927 (NAD27) because the original map from which the data were digitized was in NAD27. Also, the data fit exactly within the bounds of the FED site grid (even Universal Transverse Mercator projections) in NAD27. After projecting the data into NAD83 it was checked to insure that the change was a linear translation of the coordinates.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities in England as at December 2022. The boundaries available are: (BUC) Ultra generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2022_EN_BUC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2022_EN_BUC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2022_EN_BUC/MapServer

The Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection's Albedo data set contains rasters with the following calculations: time series average, time series standard deviation, and time series variance for white sky and black sky albedo. These Africa continent-wide calculations use surface reflectance data obtained by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) MODIS MCD43A3 product. The rasters have a 16-day temporal resolution, a spatial resolution of 500 meters, and are updated annually by AfSIS using data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC) Data Pool at https://lpdaac.usgs.gov.

The data are available in Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) from the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS).

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Local Authority Districts, in the United Kingdom, as at May 2023.

General information about NOAA-AVHRR can be queried by interested users in the category 'Sensor' and 'Source'. Some basic information is given hereafter.

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard NOAA 6 and TIROS-N measured in four spectral bands, while the NOAA 7, 9 and 11 are measured in 5 bands. The primary objective of the AVHRR instrument is to provide cloud top and sea surface temperatures through passively measured visible, near infra-red and infra-red spectral radiation bands. Nevertheless these data are widely used for terrestrial applications, such as land cover mapping and vegetation monitoring.

The available data set provides a comprehensive time series of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and different cloud parameters for the ocean surrounding the African continent derived from daytime NOAA GAC data. The total number of satellite passes is approximately 12000. The time period covered by the data set is from August 1981 to December 1992 with the intention to extend up to present (1995) as data will be purchased. Geographical coverage is from 45 S to 45 N and from 55 E to 30 W.

Initially, emphasis has been put on SST for studying coastal upwelling processes in the Northwest African and Benguela upwelling systems in continuation of the SAI/JRC on-going activity on coastal upwelling research, Nykjaer and Van Camp (1994). In parallel, different studies are carried out for establishing algorithms for cloud optical properties and their validation. The elaboration of this data set is carried out in the frame of the Cloud and Ocean Remote Sensing around Africa project (CORSA).

The five channels of the AVHRR are calibrated to 'top of atmosphere' reflectances for the channels 1 and 2 and brightness temperatures for channels 3, 4 and 5 following the recommendations of Kidwell (1991). Clouds over the ocean are identified using a modified Saunders and Kriebel (1988) approach. For cloud free areas SST is calculated using a classical 'split-window' algorithm from Castagne et al. (1986).

After SST the individual images are resampled into weekly and monthly composites maintaining the original 4 km resolution. Validation of the SST fields are done by comparing to lower resolution data sets such as Comprehensive Ocean- Atmosphere Data Set (COADS), National Meteorological Center SST Data (IGOSS) and Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas (GOSTA).

To accomodate the need for the reprocessing the data as algorithms evolve, all raw data have been written to an on-line optical file server system. In the processing, intermediate products are not stored but only the weekly and monthly composites are retained. This reduces the disk storage requirements for the user without sacrificing computational speed. Weekly and monthly composites of SST for one month, ca. 100 satellite passes, are generated in approximately 5 hours on a SUN Sparc 10 workstation.

The weekly and monthly composites are stored on the on-line optical server and made available through collaborative agreements with the Joint Research Centre.

Example SST time series can be found on the CEO World Wide Web home page: "http://www.ceo.org/".