Ahead Opens UK Foundry Facility, Marking Operationally Ready Entry Into European Market

Company expands European infrastructure delivery capabilities with new UK facility supporting AI, HPC, and edge deployments

CHICAGO and LONDON, Aug. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AHEAD, a global provider of AI-driven cloud, data, infrastructure, and security platforms, today announced the opening of its new AHEAD Foundry™ facility in Reading, UK. The facility serves as AHEAD’s new European production centre, delivering the company's industrialised platform for designing, integrating, configuring, testing, and deploying complex AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and edge infrastructure, including complete rack solutions, for organisations across the UK and Europe. The opening marks the operational cornerstone of AHEAD’s UK and broader European presence, following the company’s recent acquisition of Netherlands-based Prolimax and the appointment of Paul Allen as Executive Vice President of Sales, EMEA.

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption while navigating increasingly complex global supply chains, regional deployment requirements, and distributed IT environments, the ability to build and deploy physical infrastructure closer to where it will be used has become a strategic advantage. Built on AHEAD’s proven Foundry operating model, and powered by the Hatch® IT lifecycle management platform, the Reading facility gives multinational organisations a single, industrialised platform for deploying AI infrastructure across borders, bringing production capability closer to customers. Organisations also gain complete, single-platform visibility into infrastructure builds, assets, and shipments.

“Opening our doors today is about entering the EMEA market with proven capabilities already in place, not simply establishing a new location,” said Paul Allen, Executive Vice President of Sales, EMEA at AHEAD. “Our Reading Foundry is fully operational from day one, enabling customers to locally build, integrate, validate, and deploy the complex AI infrastructure they need, while benefiting from the same industrialised delivery model, quality, speed, and consistency that AHEAD customers have come to expect. European organisations no longer have to choose between local execution and global consistency; AHEAD is delivering both.”

AHEAD Foundry is the company’s industrialised AI infrastructure platform purpose-built for the complexity of modern AI, HPC, and edge environments. At the new Reading facility, infrastructure teams assemble, integrate, configure, validate, and prepare complete rack solutions and supporting hardware for deployment, reducing implementation risk while accelerating time to capacity. Combined with Hatch, customers gain a unified view of every asset, deployment site, and shipment regardless of where infrastructure is built or deployed, eliminating the blind spots that often slow large-scale technology rollouts.

“Building AI infrastructure is about much more than assembling hardware,” added Chris Tucker, Executive Vice President, Foundry at AHEAD. “Clients need confidence that every rack, system, and deployment arrives fully integrated, validated, and ready to perform. Foundry industrializes that process, while Hatch extends visibility well beyond deployment by providing a continuous view of assets throughout the lifecycle. Together, they help organisations scale AI infrastructure faster and with greater confidence.”

The Reading facility completes AHEAD’s coordinated EMEA expansion strategy, joining the Prolimax acquisition and the appointment of Allen to give multinational enterprises a single, industrialised platform for infrastructure delivery, lifecycle visibility, and operational support across the region. Together, Foundry and Hatch provide a differentiated operating model that bridges the physical deployment of infrastructure with continuous lifecycle management, giving organisations a faster, lower-risk path from core data centres to edge environments, without requiring an overhaul of existing operations.

“AHEAD’s state of the art configuration facility, Foundry, opening in the UK gives customers a powerful new way to turn ambition into action,” said Adrian McDonald, President Dell Technologies EMEA. “As organizations look to move faster leveraging AI, data, and modern infrastructure, they want trusted partners who can simplify complexity, accelerate adoption, and deliver measurable business value. This investment brings together the technology, expertise, and collaboration to help clients innovate with confidence and drive growth.”

For more information about AHEAD Foundry and AHEAD’s infrastructure delivery capabilities, please visit: https://www.ahead.com/ahead-foundry.

About AHEAD
AHEAD accelerates strategy into execution by engineering integrated solutions across infrastructure, applications, data, and security. The company builds and manages digital platforms that power transformation for leading enterprises, modernizing platforms and workflows and applying AI to unlock the full impact of people and technology, building what others only blueprint. For more information on AHEAD, please visit our website at https://www.ahead.com/, or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact
media-relations@ahead.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4cc47f7f-c6b7-4332-96f9-f6c629603ae8

Ribbon-cutting at AHEAD’s new UK Foundry

Left to right: Stephen Ayoub, Keith Odom, Kristin Supancich, Chris Tucker, Paul Allen, Alyssa Hall, Matt Johnson, Urvashi Chandna