As it continues the build-out of its large data center campus in Silicon Valley, Vantage Data Centers is in active negotiations to buy either land for construction or already built-out data centers in multiple other other regions around the US, Vantage CEO Jim Trout said.

With strong financial backing from Silver Lake, the one-year-old real estate investment trust is looking at deals in "the usual suspects of the Tier 1 markets," Trout said. While its existing customers in California have asked about space in London, "our business is (to) do what we do best in the US right now," he added.

By "Tier 1 markets" Trout meant data center-dense regions around Dallas and Phoenix, areas of New Jersey and North Carolina and other locations.

With access to a US$9.5bn Silver Lake fund, capital is not an issue. "We have more than enough," Trout said.

In these regions, Vantage is looking for properties that are much larger than its first development in Santa Clara, California. Trout said the next deal would most likely be for a property that is around 50-70 acres in size, since large scale was part of the wholesale data center game in these less populated regions with cheaper electricity.

Size of the Santa Clara campus, which Silver Lake bought from Intel in June 2010, is about 18 acres. One 6MW data center was already built out and a Vantage spokesperson said in February 2011 that it had been fully committed.

The second data center is currently under construction. Once Phase I is complete, it will provide 9MW of capacity, with an expansion potential of up to another 9MW.

Vantage is planning to build a third data center at the campus, which will bring another 23MW of capacity on the market at full build-out.