DataBank is increasing its presence in Atlanta with a brand new, 120-megawatt knowledge middle. The developer has acquired 95 acres of land in Lithia Springs, Ga., the place it should construct a 1 million-square-foot facility. The primary of the 2 deliberate buildings is anticipated to come back on-line by 2026, DataBank CEO Raul Martynek confirmed for Industrial Property Govt.
Slated to additionally embody a 180-megawatt substation from Georgia Energy, this new knowledge middle would be the firm’s fifth and largest within the Atlanta market. DataBank cited elevated demand for AI/ML functions as the explanation for this growth.
READ ALSO: AI Drives Explosive Development in Information Heart Demand
DataBank will assemble ATL5 to satisfy demand for brand spanking new hyperscale cloud and different enterprise shoppers. The corporate will leverage its Common Information Corridor Design, which includes firstly accommodating these high-performance computing wants. Key options of this design embody a layered constructing strategy that enables for flexibility by way of infrastructure, capability for prime density deployments, in addition to completely different cooling strategies for every knowledge corridor, relying on consumer calls for.
“Contemplating AI/ML workloads require considerably extra energy and cooling than conventional workloads, many current knowledge facilities might have to be reconfigured. Actually, HPC workloads devour as a lot as 10 occasions the facility than standard ones. With extra energy wants, come better cooling wants as properly. Thus, HPC-ready knowledge facilities have a extra demanding infrastructure requirement,” Martynek advised CPE. “There aren’t remotely sufficient knowledge facilities with such capabilities at present, so many extra will have to be constructed to satisfy such demand,” he added.
Plentiful land and energy contribute to Atlanta’s booming market
DataBank has been lively within the Atlanta market since 2018, when it developed ATL1 in partnership with Georgia Tech. Since then, it has expanded by buying two knowledge facilities in 2021. The agency additionally owns one other 18 acres of land in Lithia Springs, the place it’s constructing the ATL4 facility, which has been absolutely pre-leased.
DataBank at present operates slightly below 300,000 sq. ft of information middle area available in the market, offering 55.1 megawatts of essential load throughout its current amenities.
In keeping with Martynek, Atlanta has plentiful land and a pleasant enterprise local weather, enabling the expansion of the information middle sector within the area. Different benefits embody the provision of long-haul fiber and good general connectivity. “Atlanta has a few of the lowest utility charges within the nation for a serious metropolitan space,” Martynek talked about.
A number of different firms have just lately made commitments to the Atlanta market. DC BLOX broke floor on a $1.2 billion knowledge middle, additionally in Lithia Springs, whereas Microsoft acquired 350 acres for a $1 billion campus in Rome, Ga.
As of June, Atlanta had 235.6 megawatts beneath development, a current CBRE report reveals. The market’s 7.4 p.c emptiness fee signifies a wholesome quantity of absorption, with a lot of the new growth preleased to hyperscalers. Making an allowance for deliberate amenities as properly, the pipeline amounted to greater than 2 gigawatts, based on the identical supply.