The Washington Post has a story this weekend about the concentration of
data centers in Ashburn, Virginia [1]. We have written about Ashburn’s “data center alley” on
many occasions [2], but the Post story includes some numbers that will be of interest to DCK readers.
“The county now claims about 40 centers comprising roughly 4 million square feet of space — equivalent to 22 Wal-Mart Supercenters,” the Post reports. ” Another 800,000 square feet are either planned or being built. Loudoun officials said they expect 6.5 million square feet in data centers by 2021. ‘We don’t really see any end in sight,’ said Buddy Rizer, a business development officer at Loudoun County’s economic development office.”
Ashburn is home to a former UUNet facility that was a key hub in
MAE-East, the Internet’s first major interconnection point. Equinix built its first data center n Ashburn in 1998, providing a “carrier-neutral” facility where companies could gain access to Internet backbones operated by UUNet and AT&T. That first Ashburn site, known as DC1, quickly become the Web’s
busiest meeting place [3]. Equinix filled DC1 and has built four additional data centers in Ashburn spanning nearly 500,000 square feet of space.
The most recent expansions in Ashburn include projects for
Sabey Data Centers [4] and expansions by
Equinix [5] and DuPont Fabros Technology.
Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/08/28/washpost-profiles-ashburn-data-center-alley/
URLs in this post:
[1] data centers in Ashburn, Virginia: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/after-dramatic-growth-ashburn-expects-even-more-data-centers/2011/06/09/gIQAZduLjJ_story.html
[2] many occasions: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/04/06/the-ashburn-building-boom-continues/
[3] busiest meeting place: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/09/the-internets-busiest-intersection/
[4] Sabey Data Centers: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/06/22/sabey-plans-huge-data-center-campus-in-ashburn/
[5] Equinix: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/07/27/equinix-to-build-10th-facility-in-virginia-hub/
[6] Rich Miller: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/author/richm/
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