< Previous58 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO Nmaterialize in the Eastern Townships in decades,” said Rob Gietl, CEO of MYM.Greenhouses and dispensaries are the most commonly anticipated outgrowth of cannabis legalization — another production facility in the Montreal suburb of Pointe-Claire will employ up to people for Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis, which simultaneously is constructing the world’s largest cannabis greenhouse near Edmonton International Airport. And CannaSher, headquartered half an hour away from Weedon in the university town of Sherbrooke, will manufacture cannabis-based products and cannabis oils for medical applications at a new facility near the Charles River in Sherbrooke. e company in May announced a C$, commitment to back the newly created CannaSher Chair on Medical Cannabis at the University of Sherbrooke.Neptune Wellness Solutions was not founded with cannabis in mind. Twenty years ago it launched operations to process and refi ne krill oil for its nutriceutical properties. Production in Sherbrooke launched in , and krill oil volumes peaked in . Faced with a purchase off er too good to refuse, the company exited the bulk krill oil business in , and has put $ million of the sale’s proceeds toward deploying its refi nery complex to extract cannabis oil instead.When I visited Sherbrooke earlier this year, a research program with CannaSher already was set to commence at the Pharmacology Institute at the University of Sherbrooke, known for its strong and assets in pain management. Patrice Leclerc, PhD, coordinator of the Pharmacology Institute, says, “With Neptune we’ve already addressed some questions with regard to formulation.”Etienne Villeneuve, head of operations and technical services for Neptune, says building a plant as sophisticated as Neptune’s from scratch would cost $ million. Cannabinoid extraction was an ideal fi t for Neptune, given its wellness mission and its years of experience in oil extraction engineering at a GMP-certifi ed facility. ey know what it takes to navigate regulatory aff airs, quality control and global logistics.“We have a lot of contacts and customers already around the world, so it gives us a lot of opportunity in the cannabis space,” he says.Villeneuve explains that cultivation ultimately will be a commodity business, whereas extracting, purifying and formulation for various levels and forms of delivery is his fi rm’s promising target. e global market for krill oil was valued around C$ million. e retail market for cannabis is estimated to be worth C$. billion.In , Neptune acquired Biodroga, a turnkey developer and distributor of omega- oils for nutraceutical use primarily in softgel capsule or liquid form. at capability will be ideal for formulating cannabinoid product in various forms, depending on the order in which various formulations are permitted by the government.Neptune this spring hoped to reach the third of four steps toward fi nal licensure by the government. Villeneuve and his director quality Eric Savoie both come from years in the pharmaceutical industry, so they’re used to meeting high standards. What’s diff erent with cannabis, Villeneuve says, is the level of security required: “Fencing, cameras, everything needs to be overkill,” he says. e processing and refi ning complex has the capability to produce more than million kilos of oil. Given normal extraction ratios, that means it will be able to take in around million kilos of raw materials.“We can provide more than what Canada will need in , based on statistics already in place,” says Villeneuve. “We are proud to start here in Quebec, and we are the only one. And we are focusing worldwide — Quebec, then Canada, then Germany, China and others. It’s really an endless project.” University of Sherbrooke.We are proud to start here in Quebec, and we are the only one. And we are focusing worldwide — Quebec, then Canada, then Germany, China and others. It’s really an endless project.”— Etienne Villeneuve, Head of Operations and Technical Services, Neptune Wellness SolutionsUnder the sea, in the data center universe, usually refers to the important global web of subsea high-speed cables, such as the -terabit-per-second SAEx cable soon to come ashore in Virginia Beach, Virginia — the third to land in the area and eighth in the state.“Subsea connectivity is becoming increasingly important as evidenced by sustained and growing investment in both regional and trans-oceanic systems,” said Cliff Kane, co-CEO at Cleareon, which announced in May it planned to install a subsea system that end-runs New York CIty to provide -gig “Wavelengths” between the transatlantic cable landing stations in Wall Township, New Jersey, and the Connect colocation facility in Westbury, Long Island. “ e users of these systems require true geographical diversity to support the resiliency that their customers demand.”In Europe, data center projects are pursuing a number of alternative paths to resiliency in order to reduce pressure on a grid stretched to capacity while also increasing use of renewable energy and other energy-effi ciency measures. Microsoft is at the head of the class — but its underwater route includes the data center itself.Continuing an experiment launched three years ago off the California coast, the company recently took the “locate data centers in cold places” approach one step further. It’s not only locating in Scotland, but choosing to place a data center in the sea for the next fi ve years, receiving immediate cooling effi ciency and powering it with an undersea cable that gets renewable energy from the Orkney Islands and connects the servers to the internet.It’s called Project Natick: servers, racks and . petabytes of storage — enough to store million movies.“Microsoft is leveraging technology from submarines and working with pioneers in marine by ADAM BRUNSadam.br uns @ site s ele c tion.c om60 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO ND A T A CENTERSMicrosoft’s Project Natick team prepares to deploy the Northern Isles data center on the sea oor.Photos by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures courtesy of MicrosoftData Centers Straining the Grid? Alternatives Lurk S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 63energy for the second phase of its moonshot to develop self-sufficient underwater datacenters that can deliver lightning-quick cloud services to coastal cities,” the company explained, noting that more than half of the world’s population lives within about 120 miles of a coast. If it works in the rough seas, then shipping modular data centers to almost any location might be feasible.Christian Belady, general manager of cloud infrastructure strategy and architecture in Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise division, said the company’s vision is to be able to deploy rapidly “anywhere on the planet as needed by our customers.” He is an advocate for exploring what the company calls “the marriage of data centers and energy generation to simplify and accelerate the build-out of cloud computing infrastructure.”Key to Microsoft’s vision in Scotland was the vision of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) on Orkney, established 15 years ago as a place to experiment and explore wave and tidal energy. But flexibility proved fruitful in attracting Microsoft’s interest.“Of course, the idea of using the sea to cool a data center was not on the minds of the original designers of EMEC (who had even heard of broadband in 1999?),” an EMEC blog noted in June. Foresight on the Continent and StatesideMicrosoft and other tech giants are accelerating investments in data center and renewable energy innovation in the UK and Europe, where the accumulation of data centers — driven in part by EU privacy laws requiring data residency in the region — are straining the power grid.Last November, the company announced its second European wind project in the Netherlands with Vattenfall. Microsoft will purchase 100 percent of the wind energy generated from a 180-megawatt wind farm adjacent to its local data center operations in the Netherlands.Last September, Microsoft committed to building a gas-fired power plant to power its Dublin-area data center until the region’s utility can update its grid to deal with the area’s tremendous power load requirements driven by so much data center investment from Microsoft, Google, Interxion and others.Google in February announced plans to invest €250 million in its third building at its data center site in Saint-Ghislain, Wallonia, Belgium, where the company’s first European data center opened in 2009. Google also is investing €3 million in its first solar power facility to be installed on a data center site, featuring 10,665 solar panels.“It’s not the first time we’ve acted on our sustainability goals in Belgium,” noted Joe Kava, Google’s vice president of global data centers. “Saint-Ghislain was the very first Google data center to run entirely without refrigeration, using instead an advanced cooling system that draws grey water from the nearby industrial canal.”The renewables commitment is alive and well in the U.S. too. Iowa’s abundant wind power makes a good sustainable match for the more than 6.1 million sq. ft. of data center space under construction in Greater Des Moines by the likes of Facebook, LightEdge Solutions and AppleFacebook in May committed to a huge new data center in Eagle Mountain City, Utah, that it said will be powered 100 percent by net-new renewable energy through utilization of Rocky Mountain Power’s available renewable energy tariffs.Las Vegas–based data center giant Switch in February announced the construction of the single largest solar project portfolio in the United States in concert with Capital Dynamics. The Gigawatt 1 solar project will be built in Northern and Southern Nevada and generate enough clean energy to power nearly 1 million homes — some of it feeding Switch’s data center and telecommunications operations.“The foundation of Gigawatt Nevada is that Nevada should harness the sun the same way Alaska harnesses its oil to significantly benefit all Nevadans,” said Switch CEO and Founder Rob Roy. 64 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NHow an upstart Austin suburb became a magnet for additive manufacturing.When EOS opened its North American headquarters on May , , in Pfl ugerville, Texas, the global additive manufacturing leader did more than stamp its endorsement on the Capital Region of the Lone Star State.It signaled to everyone that Pfl ugerville had arrived as North America’s D-printing city.“ e opening of our Pfl ugerville facility helps us deliver even better and faster service and support to our regional customers,” said Glynn Fletcher, president of EOS North America Inc. “EOS has a company-wide goal of continually improving systems, materials and process solutions wherever we operate. Pfl ugerville’s location near Austin, one of the fastest-growing technology hubs in the U.S., allows us to make connections with some of the most notable technology organizations and schools in the nation and enables a high-level, optimum response to our customers’ needs across multiple time zones.”As the additive manufacturing sector has grown, so has the need for locations to house and nurture the growth of the fi rms leading the next wave of innovation in D printing.Enter Pfl ugerville, an Austin suburb that’s rapidly making an advanced manufacturing name for itself. A city of , residents just minutes from downtown Austin, Pfl ugerville is on a roll when it comes to landing the crown jewels of additive manufacturing.Arconic, the conglomerate formerly known as Alcoa, cast a decisive vote in favor of Pfl ugerville when it acquired RTI Directed Manufacturing by RON S TARNERr on. s t ar ner @ site s ele c tion.c omINVESTMENT PROFILE:PFLUGERVILLE, TEXASWhen EOS opened its North American headquarters on May , , in Pfl ugerville, Texas, the global additive manufacturing leader did more than stamp its endorsement on the Capital Region of the Lone Star State.It signaled to everyone that Pfl ugerville had arrived as North America’s D-printing city.“ e opening of our Pfl ugerville facility helps us deliver even better and faster service and support to our regional customers,” said Glynn Fletcher, president of EOS North America Inc. “EOS has a company-wide goal of continually improving systems, materials and process solutions wherever we S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 65Inc. e acquisition made RTI the fl agship organization in Arconic’s Advanced Additive product line. e Pfl ugerville-based operation produces complex products using titanium, nickel-chromium alloys and other specialty metals and composite plastics.A key factor in RTI’s growth is its ability to buy its D-printing machines from EOS in Pfl ugerville.Building a 3D-Printing Hub“ e disruption caused by this new manufacturing process is only starting to make its mark because it provides cost-savings and improved options for medical, aerospace, and manufacturing,” says Amy Madison, executive director of the Pfl ugerville Community Development Corp. (PCDC). “Pfl ugerville is a great fi t and a natural hub in Central Texas because our high-tech, creative workforce is just what they need to grow.”Mike Conner, vice president of service for EOS North America, concurs. “We were based in a smaller building in Round Rock, and we needed room to grow,” he says. “I reached out to Amy and asked what facilities they had available in Pfl ugerville. We looked at multiple sites and found this facility just off Interstate . It’s easy for our clients and colleagues to get here. We are just minutes from the Austin airport. is is the prime location we were seeking.”Located less than minutes from four airports — Austin-Bergstrom International, Austin Executive, Taylor Municipal and Georgetown Municipal — Pfl ugerville maximizes business connectivity; it doesn’t hurt that I-, U.S. , and State Highways and serve the city.But location alone wasn’t enough to seal the deal, notes Conner. “We needed fl ex space. We needed a warehouse, offi ces and a big location for a showroom for all our equipment,” he says. “ is facility in Pfl ugerville was the perfect fi t. It has power and freeport tax exemptions for imports for goods arriving from our parent company in Munich, Germany. And the location enables our employees to easily get here from Killeen, Georgetown and Austin.”A well-trained workforce clinched the decision, he adds. “With the University of Texas at Austin, Central Texas College in Killeen and smaller tech schools serving the area, the educational institutions in Greater Austin have been home to additive manufacturing since the s,” Conner says. “ ere is a wealth of knowledge to tap into here. Texas State in San Marcos has a class in additive manufacturing, and UT-Austin has a large lab for prototyping for additive manufacturing machines. is technology was developed at UT-Austin in the s.”From Bedroom Town to Job CityMadison and her team were instrumental in facilitating the deal, Conner adds. “ e PCDC has been very good to us. ey constantly come and talk to us,” he says. “ ey work with us on future endeavors. ey brought in the Marriott Hotel and the Best Western Hotel next to our facility. It is convenient for visitors to EOS to stay right here.”EOS leased , sq. ft. at Commerce Center and plans to employ workers full-time upon full production. e average annual wage of these new hires tops $,.It also has a new neighbor: the PCDC. “We moved into our space in February and I can see their offi ce out my window. at is how close we want to remain to D and EOS in our eff ort to attract companies who need this technology,” says Madison.Word is getting out, as well. MONEY Magazine recently ranked Pfl ugerville as the th Best Place to Live in America, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city, formerly ranked th, is now the third fastest growing municipality in the country.“Some , people get up every day and drive from here to a job in Austin or Round Rock,” Madison says. “We plan on turning that around.”Judging from the results at EOS and Arconic, Pfl ugerville may not have to wait long. This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of the Pflugerville Community Development Corp. For more information, contact Amy Madison at 512-990-3725 or amym@pfdevelopment.com. On the web, go to www.pfdevelopment.com.“This facility in P ugerville was the perfect t. It has power and freeport tax exemptions for imports for goods arriving from our parent company in Munich, Germany. And the location enables our employees to easily get here from Killeen, Georgetown and Austin.”— Mike Conner, Vice President of Service, EOS North America66 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NAsian nations and Germany are among the leaders blending automation and human beings into a new manufacturing mindset.Could the global war for talent really be a global war for robots? If so, the consequences may not be as dire as replacing you and your colleagues with arti cial intelligence and machines, but refreshing your skills to work better with those machines.Let there be no doubt: e robots are still coming, part of a wave of advanced manufacturing technologies advancing into every sort of workplace. e International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reported in June in its World Robotics Report that global sales of industrial robots reached a new record of , units in — an increase of percent compared to ’s , units. China saw the largest growth in demand for industrial robots, up percent.China leads an Asian juggernaut when it comes to robotics, which may strike some as ironic given China’s immense population and reputation for manufacturing complexes employing thousands. by ADAM BRUNSadam.br uns @ site s ele c tion.c omADVANCED MANUFACTURINGYaskawa’s MOTOMAN dual-arm robot performs all the necessary tasks in a lab environment. Japan produces 52 percent of all robots globally.Photo courtesy of Yaskawa Could the global war for talent really be a global war for robots? If so, the consequences may not be as dire as replacing you and your colleagues with arti cial intelligence and machines, but refreshing CEven Are ComingNext >