New Hyper-Scale Data Center Developer Enters North American Market

Another company has been formed to build massive data centers for hyper-scale cloud platforms such as Facebook, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure.

PointOne Developments announced Tuesday a new business branch called PointOne Development Corp., which can tap up to $7.5 billion in capital to fund data center construction projects, starting with two in the US and Canada.

As hyper-scale companies continue expanding data center capacity at rapid clip, the recent years have seen a rush of new, well-funded developers enter the market, seeking to take advantage of the trend, which has fueled an unprecedented boom for established data center builders such as CyrusOne and Digital Realty Trust.

In addition to its corporate parent, the new venture is backed by the infrastructure specialist Black & Veatch, consulting firm Critical Project Services, developer Diode Ventures, and investment and asset management firm Enfinite Capital.

The company said its “proprietary design and build strategy includes modular mechanical and electrical systems which can streamline construction time to less than 180 days.” That’s on par with CyrusOne’s industry leading ability to deliver hyper-scale projects in six months.

Development is already underway on a site in Remington, Virginia, which according to PointOne has access to 300MW of utility power; and on a property in Alberta, Canada, with access to 240MW. The developer is currently considering additional sites in the US, Australia, Ireland, and UAE.

Remington is about 50 miles south of Ashburn, Virginia, the largest and hottest data center market in North America. It’s 80 miles north of the construction site for the future $1 billion Facebook data center in Henrico, Virginia, and 180 miles north of Virginia Beach, the place where two key new submarine cables land: Facebook and Microsoft’s transatlantic Marea cable and Telefonica’s Brusa cable, which will carry traffic between the US and South America once it comes online later this year.

Black & Veatch will be doing site-feasibility and design-build work on the Remington project.

The Alberta site, located in the city’s industrial area called Acheson (also home to PointOne Developments headquarters), sits “at the intersection of long-haul fiber optic cables” stretching from Vancouver on Canada’s West Coast to Edmonton, and from Edmonton all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the East Coast.