The need for data centers is growing at a rapid rate. New startups and tech companies are relying more and more on offsite storage and processing power — and with good reason; the power density of data centers is 100 times that of a large commercial office building, offering computing capabilities that simply wouldn’t be possible on site. As demand increases, so too does their size: let’s take a look at the world’s largest data centers.
- Range International Information Group: China is leading the digital way, so to speak. This 6.3 million square foot facility was built to keep up with China’s push into the IT sector; located in the Hebei province, it is equivalent to the square footage of nearly 110 football pitches.
- Switch SuperNAP: This base is located in Las Vegas in an attempt to avoid natural disasters. Totaling 3.5 million sq. ft., it plans to make Nevada the most digitally connected state (thanks to an extensive network of fiber optic cables) by 2025.
- DuPont Fabros Technology: When the Dupont Fabros Technology completed the ACC7 facility, it added 1.6 million sq. ft. to the company’s agglomerate. It boasts 28 computer rooms and capacity for over 10,500 servers.
- Utah Data Center: Located at Camp Williams near Bluffdale, Utah, this 1.5 million sq. ft. data center was completed in May 2014. Despite power surges that caused damage in the first 13 months, it is capable of storing between three and 12 exabytes (an exabyte is equal to one quintillion bytes) of data.
- Microsoft Data Center: Though not completed yet, Microsoft is planning to add a new data facility to their already massive portfolio. The site is located in Des Moines and totals 1.2 million square footage of commercial space. It is due to be completed between 2019 and 2021.
Though server rack sizes vary greatly, it’s clear that these five behemoths take the cake: not a single one is under one million square feet. As interest in more types of data racks and types of server racks (and server rack sizes) continues to shoot for the sky, who knows how big we can get, and how immensely powerful the final result will be!