Fiber brings the data centers

I had a conversation earlier this week with a well-connected business person who is in the business of building data centers. The two top criteria his firm uses to identify communities in which to locate data centers is power and fiber. What he told me is that for the size of data center he typically builds (50,000 to 100,000 square feet) they are looking for power from two separate sub-stations, and that power from two separate grids is even better. Few communities get fed from two grids, but it is more likely to be able to get power to some industrial/commercial sites from two different sub-stations. Even though these data centers have backup generators on-site, the 15 to 30 megawatts these facility use make dual feeds desirable.

Power is something all communities have, and if extra capacity is needed, it can usually be added easily if the funds are available to support new transmission lines and/or new transformers. Note that the lead time on large power transformers is one year or more, so a strategy of "If someone wants extra power, we'll just build it," may not be leading with your best foot forward, as they may move your community off the short list in favor of communities that have already addressed power.

So that leaves fiber as a key discriminator in relocation decisions. Planning and building local fiber infrastructure can take six to 12 months at a minimum, so if you want to attract data centers, you want open access fiber assets already in place and ready to use.

Some data points: the massive Google data center in rural Washington state was placed there because fiber assets were already in place. The fact that cheap power was available was a secondary consideration. Danville, Virginia won a new, large data center recently because they had both fiber in place and reliable power. Fiber gives communities a competitive edge for business attraction.