Ilkari has integrated DC North, Croatia’s largest carrier-neutral data centre by operational power capacity, into its European sovereign infrastructure operations, with plans to scale the site’s available power from 4MW to up to 10MW as incoming grid supply comes online.
The Varaždin facility, located roughly 70km north of Zagreb, holds Uptime Tier III Design and Facility certification alongside ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 20000, ISO 27001 and ISO 22301 certifications, and is PCI DSS compliant. That credential set, Ilkari says, gives the site a strong infrastructure foundation for organisations working towards the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
“European organisations are increasingly reassessing where critical infrastructure is operated, how data is governed and how operational resilience is ensured across complex digital environments,” said Paterson. “The integration of DC North strengthens our European presence and enhances our ability to support customers that require resilient, sovereign-aligned infrastructure within the European Union.”
Building a Central and Eastern European hub
DC North sits at the intersection of several redundant optical routes linking to major hubs in Austria, Slovenia and Hungary, giving customers carrier-neutral access to Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers alongside low-latency routes across Central Europe. The site also benefits from a seismically stable location and a 100-year flood-free record, which Ilkari points to as a naturally resilient environment for critical infrastructure.
“The location gives DC North a strong role to play in supporting Croatian customers and organisations looking for connectivity into wider Central and Eastern European markets,” Paterson said. Its position 70km from Zagreb also makes it well suited to disaster recovery and business continuity strategies for organisations based in the capital.
Utilisation currently sits at around 5%, leaving significant headroom for new customers as the site scales towards 10MW. Ilkari keeps its existing customer roster confidential, but describes a mix of cloud providers, systems integrators and telecommunications companies already on site, with growing interest from organisations planning large-scale deployments.
“Ilkari was looking for a high-quality, certified data centre with available capacity and strong expansion potential,” Paterson explained. “DC North met those requirements through its build quality, design, and ability to support demanding customers and market segments.”
DORA as a commercial differentiator
While financial services is an important target market given the DORA alignment, Paterson is careful to frame certification as a foundation rather than a guarantee of compliance for customers.
“It’s important to emphasise that a certified data centre such as DC North provides a strong foundation for DORA compliance, but it does not make a customer DORA-compliant on its own,” he said. DORA itself reaches beyond the physical site, covering ICT risk management, incident response and reporting, resilience testing, third-party risk management and tested exit strategies for critical suppliers. “The customer remains responsible for meeting its own DORA obligations, while DC North provides the secure, resilient and well-governed environment on which those obligations can be supported.”
Integration into Ilkari’s wider operations covers process alignment and connecting DC North to the company’s technical operations centre, to bring the site in line with standards across Ilkari’s portfolio. Paterson confirmed this will come with significant investment, including recruitment of technical and commercial staff drawing on the local Croatian workforce, alongside a rebrand already under way under the name DC North by Ilkari.
“DORA alignment is becoming a decisive differentiator for regulated enterprises evaluating European infrastructure partnerships,” Paterson said. “As organisations modernise critical systems and take on high-performance and AI-driven workloads, the infrastructure underneath needs to meet an increasingly high bar, from resilience, governance and connectivity to sovereign capability, all within EU jurisdiction.”
A sovereign cloud platform spanning three continents
DC North joins Ilkari’s existing operations in Iceland and Colombia as part of a broader push to grow its data centre presence across multiple continents. The three sites currently operate within their own regions, but Ilkari is rolling out a shared sovereign cloud platform across all of them, with DC North expected to be integrated into it in the coming months.
“This will provide cloud customers with greater control and financial predictability, whether they use Ilkari’s shared or dedicated cloud services,” Paterson said.
The move lands as conversations about data sovereignty and operational resilience intensify across Europe, with enterprises increasingly weighing up where infrastructure sits and how exit strategies and third-party risk are managed, not just where servers are physically located.
Looking ahead, Paterson said the immediate focus is on supporting customers assessing the site for new deployments and regional expansion. “The planned increase in grid supply, from 4MW to up to 10MW, provides a strong platform for future growth,” he said. “We’ll also continue investing in the site, strengthening the local team, and integrating DC North into Ilkari’s wider operational and sovereign cloud platforms.”
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