US data center operator QTS Realty Trust (QTS) has pre-sold approximately 26,000 sq ft of raised floor at its new Dallas-Fort Worth mega data center, even though the facility doesn’t open until September 2014.

At the opening of the facility it will initially offer a custom data center (C1), colocation (C2) and cloud and managed services (C3) for different customers.

The operator said that many internet and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies will use the QTS data centers.

The scale of new customer orders have taken the company by surprise and it is now attempting to speed up development of the facility.

Construction of the 40-acre campus began at the end of 2013.

The multi-building campus is the site of a former semi-conductor facility and features a dual-fed onsite substation and a 700,000 sq ft building.

It will eventually house up to eight custom data center rooms ranging from 25,000 to 27,000 sq ft.

QTS now has 12 data centers in eight states and owns a total of 4.7m sq ft of data center infrastructure, supporting 875 customers.

Recently, it acquired for US$18m the former print works site of the Chicago Sun Times, on the south west side of Chicago, which it is spending $200m to convert into data center facilities.

"We're proud to announce the signing of the first customers at our Dallas Fort-Worth facility,” Dan Bennewitz, QTS’S COO said, “particularly those that use more than one of our mega data centers.”

This site's central location, ample power capacity and rich networking connections will provide a strong foundation for QTS, he said.

“We are excited to bring QTS' operational excellence and premium customer experience to this dynamic and growing market," Bennewitz said.