Colocation giant Equinix has opened a new data center at its Ashburn campus in Virginia. Called DC12, it is its 14th data center in the Washington, D.C. area.
DC12 houses 1,275 cabinets and more than 57,800 square feet (5,370 sq m) of data center space, with a plan to reach approximately 3,000 cabinets at full build.
The data center heartland
Located across the street from DC10 and near to DC3, the $98.5 million facility will be a LEED Gold Certified building and use indirect evaporative cooling (IDEC) technology to reduce water use.
“The Equinix Ashburn campus features one of the highest densities of networks and cloud providers within our global platform of IBX data centers,” Karl Strohmeyer, Americas President at Equinix, said.
“Interconnection opportunities for enterprises and government agencies across the Washington, D.C. metro are immense and will enable customers to accelerate their digital transformation.”
Equinix also revealed that it has purchased four additional parcels of land spanning 34.5 acres for potential future expansion, bringing its total investment in the Washington, D.C. area to nearly $1 billion.
Northern Virginia is currently the largest data center market in the US, a fact that looks likely to remain true for some time - this month alone has seen QTS announce a 140MW campus in Ashburn and set its sights on 281 acres in Loudoun, while Vantage plans a $1bn campus in Ashburn and Facebook a $1bn data center in Henrico County.
Also this month, rumors have swirled around the fate of a massive church in Loudoun County, with talks to convert it into a data center underway.