Data centres in the US: the need for evolution, bigger, bolder and greener data centres

There are some extremely impressive data centres across the world, especially within the US who also have a few remarkable ones on the way. Data centres are always evolving and the concept of data has become more valuable over time, so much so, the industry often moves at a rate higher than it can keep up with.

Facebook, Gallatin, Tennessee

Social media giant Facebook is set to build a whopping $800 million data centre in Gallatin, Tennessee, US. The facility is set to be 982,000 ft² and expected to be one of the most advanced data centres in the world, and as well as that, they expect to be energy and water-efficient.

The facility plans to be fully powered by renewable energy and reduce its water usage by 80% compared to the average data centre. The facility is expected to achieve a LEED Gold certification once the project is completed and to continue Facebook’s efforts to make a greener data centre, they have also collaborated with the Tennessee Valley Authorities to add an extra 220MW of new solar power to the region.

Facebook will then have 13 data centres in the US alone and will total up their global presence to 17 data centres across the world. This project is set to bring 1,100 jobs during the peak of its construction stages and support a further 100 jobs in the region. There will certainly be a need for some key data centre jobs to be filled throughout the life cycle of the project.

Apple, Texas

In 2018, Apple was set to invest around $10 billion into its current and new data centres over the next five years. Their plan was to include expansions of four of their current data centres and to build new centres too. They managed to go ahead with many of their plans and also create some new plans for future data centres in 2021 and onward.

With their Texas project set to be finished in 2022, they expect to have brought around 5,000 jobs to the economy, including roles within data centre construction and development, data centre management and maintenance and much more. Apple also have intentions to expand those 5,000 jobs to 15,000 staff working in Austin, Texas. This is just one of their many data centre projects that is set to finish in the next few years.

Apple has some ambitious plans in their pipeline for their data centres - along with becoming 100% renewable energy powered, they have also been stepping up their purchases of data centre components since the first quarter of 2020. They expect to see this continue into 2021 to support further their ongoing business services.

QTS Hillsboro, Oregon Data Centre campus

The mega-scale data centre provider QTS announced it had started work on the site in February and have continued work during the pandemic, formally opening a 4.5MW hall within the first building in 2020. The initial development will feature the construction of a 158,000 square foot data centre and 27 megawatts of gross power capacity. The campus is set across 95 acres of land and once the whole site is complete it is set to host five mega data centres totalling approximately 1.5 million gross square feet encompassing more than 1 million square feet of leasable capacity and more than 250 megawatts of gross power capacity.

The new campus QTS are building is woven into a "rich tapestry" of networking, according to the QTS release. This site is set to provide carrier-neutral cloud interconnection, multiple fibre routes and IP providers, and multiple dark and lit fibre providers. The local fibre infrastructure: The Hillsboro Ring connects 14 data centres and offers low-cost dark fibre access to trans-Pacific cable systems.

Along with its impressive size, QTS also intend on this site being run off 100% renewable power. As a company, QTS has promised 100% renewable power across all of its data centres by 2025, QTS anticipates having 100% renewable energy available for customers upon opening its Hillsboro facility.

How Quanta can help

The future of data centres in the US is looking bright with many projects in the pipeline and intentions to expand and grow what is already there. At Quanta, our ICT and Data centres team are always on the lookout for innovative people for their roles. Find your next data centre or ICT jobs here or through our job search facility, or find out more about how we can help you.