Over the past decade, data center space has been growing at an incredible rate. More and more businesses are moving toward cloud computing, and the amount of data that is stored is also at levels that would have been unheard of not so long ago, which has resulted in some impressively large data centers . The following list looks at the ten largest data centers that are either active, or being built, today.
Fueled by the need to be connected 24 x 7, the demand for data center services has become red-hot. Reflecting this growth in today’s digital economy, data center construction is expected to register an annual compound growth rate of approximately 22 percent through 2018. Some operators believe that bigger data centers are better!
The Citadel – Tahoe Reno, Nevada
They use future-proof concepts that are imitated with virtually all new data center designs.
This facility is located near the Tesla Gigafactory and will be powered exclusively by renewable energy making it not only the biggest, but also the greenest data center in the world.
7.2 Million Square Feet
Range International Information Group – Langfang, China
This was once the largest data center in the world, and has only been open for about a year. It was designed to help meet the skyrocketing needs of the Chinese economic and technological boom that has been running for about two decades. As with most large scale projects in China, this data center was built by a combined public and private investment.
6.3 Million Square Feet
Switch SuperNAP – Las Vegas, Nevada
The Switch SuperNAP held the title of largest data center in the world for quite some time, boasting 3.5 million square feet. It is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. This massive data center might regain its status as the world’s largest at some point in the future since Switch has plans for significant expansions in 2020 and 2025.
3.5 Million Square Feet
DFT Data Center – Ashburn
1.6 Million Square Feet
DuPont has been expanding their data center located in Virginia. It currently occupies six separate buildings on their campus, which combine to more than 1.6 million square feet of data center space. These buildings were largely transformed from other uses into data center space, which accounts for the odd setup and configuration. There are no current plans for further expansions at this point.
Utah Data Center – Bluffdale, Utah
It’s official name, the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center,is quite a mouthful. In most situations, this data center is simply called the Utah Data Center. The facility was completed back in 2014 with the total costs topping $1.5 billion thanks to a variety of setbacks, power surges, and other issues. Today the data center is fully up and running with the capacity to handle as much as 12 Exabyte’s of data now, and possibly more in the future.
1.5 Million Square Feet
Microsoft Data Center – West Des Moines, Iowa
1.2 Million Square Feet
Microsoft has been working on a new data center since 2014 with plans to have it fully completed by sometime between 2019 and 2021. This data center will be the largest in the Microsoft lineup. It will have 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, which will bring the total data center space to 6.3 million square feet owned by Microsoft.
Lakeside Technology Center – Chicago, Illinois
1.1 Million Square Feet
Digital Reality Trust owns the Lakeside Technology Center, which is used by many different companies including Facebook, CenturyLink, IBM, and others. This location has some of the most redundant systems around with 53 backup power generators to minimize the risk of any type of outage. This building was updated and renovated from its original use as a printing press for Sears Catalogs and Yellow Book phone books.
Next Generation Data Europe – Wales, UK
750,000 Square Feet
New Generation Data Europe is one of the older data centers on the list, being completed back in 1998. It is still the largest data center in Europe. The building was originally a LG semiconductor plant before it was converted to a data center. They have more than 19,000 server cabinets to house and maintain equipment from a diverse set of customers.
QTS Metro Data Center – Atlanta, Georgia
990,000 Square Feet
The building used for this massive 990,000 square foot data center was built way back in 1954. For many years it was used as a distribution center for the Sears Southeast region. In 2000 the building was bought and went through a huge re-purposing project to turn it into the data center that we see today. It took six years and $80 million to remodel the building.
Tulip Data Center – Bangalore, India
1 Million Square Feet
For years, the Tulip data center was the largest non-US based data center in the world. Construction on the facility began in 2011. It was designed in large part by IBM engineers, with input from a variety of different industry experts.