The University of Virginia is looking to get a new data center.
The data center would be used for research purposes, with the university stating that it is approaching the capacity of its current facility, as reported by Cavalier Daily.
If approved, the data center would have an initial 4MW of IT capacity and see $72 million of investment. This could be expanded to 16MW in the future.
The facility would be located at the Fontaine Research Park in Charlottesville, and would use geothermal heating and cooling from the adjacent Fontaine Energy Plant. In addition, waste heat from the data center can be repurposed on the park grounds.
According to the university's vice president and CIO Kelly Doney, the current data center - with 1.5MW of capacity - is nearing maximum capacity and is resulting in delays for users.
At a Board of Visitors Finance Committee March 7 meeting, Doney said: "We can already see that our researchers are experiencing significant delays in their ability to access the computational resources, and this is a big factor in terms of faculty recruiting and retention. We want to be competitive with other schools.”
The existing data center, according to the university, cannot be expanded due to "physical site, cooling, and power limitations."
Doney noted that construction would need to begin in 2026 for an opening date in 2029.
The university explored using cloud computing capacity or leasing commercial data center space. According to Josh Baller, associate vice president for research computing, these alternatives were far more costly.
Baller said that the university found that using the cloud would be around five times more expensive than storing data on-premise, while using a colocation facility "would result in substantially higher costs over time" as the need to expand capacity grows.
Baller noted that the university's existing data center will be able to operate for another two years. "We'll continue to operate it up until it's no longer worth the money... then we will shut it down, and the new data center will replace it."
The data center project will be discussed during the Board of Visitors' June meeting.
Fontaine Research Park spans 54 acres off of Interstate 64 and Route 29. The site was acquired in 1994 and is currently home to eight buildings and several university research units and departments. In 2018, the Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Board of Visitors approved a long-term master plan for the site, including a new Institute of Biotechnology.
Last year, the university filed for the Fontaine Central Energy Plant, a 19,000 sq ft (1,765 sqm) building that will use thermal energy generation and distribution technology, including geothermal storage, low-temperature hot water distribution, and heat recovery chillers. The plant will provide heating and cooling services at the research park.
The University of Virginia's existing data center suffered an outage in May 2023 after fallen trees impacted its grid connection. The university launched a data center in 2011, which spanned 12,500 sq ft with 5,500 sq ft of raised floor and around 1MW of critical power. The data center was built to expand capacity from the university's other Carruthers Hall data center.
