New Data Center Developments: December 2023

The demand for new data centers isn't showing any sign of slowing. With new projects being announced each week, keeping track of the latest data center developments is not always easy.

To keep you informed about the latest data center news involving design, construction, and related developments, we bring you the highlights from the past month.

This curated selection will help you stay on top of the latest data center development news with ease.

North American Data Center Deals

The stream of new data center developments continued at pace this past month, with DC Blox announcing the purchase and commencement of construction of a new campus in Douglasville, Georgia. 

Designed to meet demanding hyperscale requirements, the $1.2 billion data center campus will feature 12 data halls, totaling 750,000 sq.ft of gross space on 55 acres. 180 MW of power has been committed for the campus, with initial customer move-in expected in mid-2025. 

Staying in Georgia, DataBank said it had acquired nearly 100 acres of land in Atlanta for a new data center campus. The site is located within a half-mile of the existing 18 acres DataBank already owns nearby, and upon which it is constructing its ATL4 facility.  

Related:The World's Most Unusual and Unique Data Centers

In Wisconsin, the Racine County Board unanimously granted the final approvals needed for Microsoft to take ownership of more than 1,000 acres of the Wisconsin Innovation Park for a multibillion-dollar data center.

Combined with 315 acres that the company previously purchased, Microsoft will control about two square miles of the business park that was created to bring Foxconn to Wisconsin.

Elsewhere, Digital Realty has partnered with Realty Income to support the development of two build-to-suit data centers in Northern Virginia.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, TA Realty has signed a 430 MW lease agreement with a “premier global cloud services provider” for its entire data center campus.

The agreement includes leases across five buildings over the sprawling 1.9 million-square-foot project. Construction is expected to be completed in 2027.

Meanwhile, city officials in El Paso, Texas, want to sell 1,039 acres of vacant land to pave the way for a hyperscale data center near the New Mexico border. 

The proposed project has an estimated cost of $800 million, including paying the city $8.5 million for the land, according to city information provided to the El Paso City Council, which recently gave initial approval to selling the land.

Staying in Texas, H5 Data Centers has announced the expansion of its edge data center in downtown San Antonio. The Tier III expansion of the colocation space will enable up to an additional 340 cabinets and up to 1.5 MW of additional UPS capacity. 

Related:Top 5 Challenges Impeding Data Center Industry Growth in 2023

More data center developments in North America:

Latin America Data Center News

In Latin America, online gambling firm Continent8 Technologies is developing a new data center in Curaçao.  

The expansion of its existing site comes on the heels of numerous initiatives set out by the Curaçao Gaming Control Board, including revising the licensing procedure for operators on the island. 

Digital infrastructure company Cirion Technologies has announced the expansion of its data center complex in São Paulo, Brazil with a new 3,600 sq.m building. According to the company, the expansion of the SAO1 complex will allow it to continue supporting the demands of diverse hyperscalers, carriers, and content providers. 

Scala Data Centers has announced the issuance of green debentures worth $215 million, with the funds being earmarked for the construction of data centers in Brazil.

According to the company, the funds will cater to hyperscale customers and will address the increasing demand for cloud services in the country.

“We will continue to innovate to meet the growing demands of the Hyperscale market through future-proof constructions, which means, those which already consider the increase in densities per rack without interruptions in the production environment,” said Marcos Peigo, CEO and co-founder of Scala.

ODATA has cut the ribbon on its largest data center campus in Chile and announced the expansion of its existing ST01 site. Located in San Bernardo, ST02 offers up to 40.6 MW of IT load capacity and stands at approximately 366,000 square feet.

Finally, Google is moving forward with the construction of a global data center in Uruguay after the tech giant received the necessary environmental permits.

“For Uruguay, it is an excellent sign, in the sense of the advance of innovation, technology, and the digital economy,” said Uruguay’s Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado.

European Data Center Developments

Norwegian data center company Green Mountain and German power company KMW marked the start of construction of their new sustainable data center in Mainz, outside Frankfurt.

CyrusOne announced the topping out of its state-of-the-art MAD1 data center development in Madrid, Spain.

CyrusOne acquired the five-acre site in 2021. The two-story data center will deliver 18 MW across 6,000 square meters of technical space. 

The news came as investment firm ACS Group unveiled it was also planning a new data center in Madrid after it purchased a parcel of land in Alcalá de Henares. The project will be developed over the next five years.

Elsewhere in Europe, Digital infrastructure firm nLighten has acquired Gyro Center, a high-performance data center in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The carrier-neutral data center is said to operate on 100% renewable energy, and nLighten said it would set about modernizing the facility’s cooling system in the near future.

In Sweden, EcoDataCenter is investing further in the EcoDataCenter 1 facility in Falun to more than double its current capacity. The expansion is driven by the company’s recent success in securing a “major global customer” as well as increased interest from companies worldwide.

Asia-Pacific Data Centers

Singaporean telecommunications giant Singtel has secured its first green loan totaling more than $400 million, which will be used to refinance and support the operations of its two data centers, DC West and DC Kim Chuan.

The funding stipulates the two data centers must maintain at least a Green Mark GoldPlus sustainability certification from Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority.

“We will … continue exploring ways to incorporate technologies such as liquid cooling and AI to further improve the efficiency of all our data centers, including our upcoming DC Tuas,” said Arthur Lang, chief financial officer at Singtel.

In India, Adani Enterprises, the flagship of billionaire Gautam Adani, will spend around $1.5 billion on its fledgling data center business in the next three years, as growth focus returns at the Indian conglomerate.

The annual capital expenditure on the data center business, called AdaniConnex â€“ a joint venture with the global data center provider EdgeConnex â€“ is expected to be about $500 million this year, according to Adani CFO Jugeshinder Singh.

The company is planning to build nine data centers and targeting a total capacity of 1 gigawatt by 2030.

Gaw Capital Partners has entered a strategic partnership with Sinar Primera for the development of a data center in Batam, Indonesia. 

The data center campus in Nongsa Digital Park “will enable the near-shoring strategy for data center operators based in Singapore and fortify the digital bridge that connects Singapore and Indonesia,” the companies said. 

Thailand is set to receive a massive $8.46 billion worth of investment from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft, as the tech giants turn their attention to Southeast Asia.

Citing a government spokesperson, Reuters said the companies will invest around $2.8 billion each, while AWS is also planning to build a data center with a budget of $5 billion over 15 years.

African Data Center Investments

In Africa, the Kenyan government secured a $4.48 billion deal for Green Development projects at the COP28 summit.

As part of the deal, EcoCloud will invest in 200MW of data center infrastructure at an investment cost of $1.5 billion.

Elsewhere, MainOne, an Equinix company, has cut the ribbon on a Tier III data center, AB1.2, in VITIB, Grand Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire.

Through the expansion, MainOne said it aims to bolster digital transformation, foster innovation, and support growing demand for data processing, storage, and connectivity in Cote d’Ivoire and across Francophone West Africa.

“With this launch of our new data center in Cote d’Ivoire, we are entering an exciting phase of transformation for businesses as it delivers a great opportunity to welcome more customers into our rich digital ecosystem, interconnected to the major digital players in the region and delivering 100% uptime connectivity to internet,” said Etienne Kouadio Doh, country manager for MainOne in Cote D’Ivoire.

The news builds on MainOne’s landing of its subsea cable to the launch of its initial data center in 2019, in Cote d’Ivoire.