Aligned Opens 'Elastic' Data Center in Phoenix

Aligned Energy announced the opening of its 51-acre, 550,000-square-foot, Phoenix data center this week, the second of its kind built by the provider that lends itself to higher degree of elasticity than most colocation facilities.

Designed by Aligned sister company Inertech, the data center’s modular cooling system allows clients to adjust rack density on demand, according to the company. It also enables elastic data center cooling capacity, adding or reducing capacity 300 kW at a time, and customers can increase or reduce the amount of capacity they deploy with the provider on an as-needed basis, paying only for what they use -- a highly unusual model for a colocation provider.

More on how it works here: Modular Cooling System Enables On-Demand Data Center Capacity

The first phase of the Phoenix campus offers 62 MW, expandable up to 120 MW.

The design is also being used in Aligned’s first data center in Plano, Texas, a 300,000-square foot, 30 MW facility launched last year. Lenovo, eBay and Telus data centers, among others, also employ the cooling system.

Aligned says it is exploring California, Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey for its next data center.