The geography of Facebook data centers

Fort Worth Data Center – Source: informationweek.com

Just this week, Facebook announced it would be building its fifth data center complex in Fort Worth, Texas. Hat’s off to Facebook, as the entire complex will contain 750,000 square feet in three buildings on 111 acres, will be 100% powered by renewable energy (wind power specifically). Existing Facebook data centers are located in:

• Des Moines (Altoona), Iowa (2014/2016) = 476,000 square feet plus a second 476,000 square foot center is under construction (to be completed in 2016) for a total of 952,000 square feet. The entire facility is powered entirely by renewable wind energy and there is space for a future third data center bringing a total of 1,400,000 square feet at build out.
• Forest City, North Carolina (2011) = 300,000 square feet
• Prineville, Oregon (2011) = 307,000 square feet in two buildings
• Lulea, Sweden (2013) = 290,000 square feet

Altoona Data Center – Source: desmoinesregister.com

As the article from the Des Moines Register shown above indicates, Altoona, Iowa, which located just northeast of the state’s capital city of Des Moines, has become an important node for data center development with two Facebook centers (a third one planned in the future) and one each for Enseva and LightEdge. Combine these with the Google data center in Council Bluffs, and Iowa appears to be one of the states at the forefront of data center development in the United States.

SOURCES:

• http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/digital-business/facebook-friends-fort-worth-with-data-center-plans-/d/d-id/1321223
• http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article26649556.html
• http://www.convergedigest.com/2015/07/facebooks-latest-open-compute-project.html
• http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/07/facebook-announces-fifth-data-center-located-in-fort-worth-texas/
• http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/the-facebook-data-center-faq/
• https://www.facebook.com/PrinevilleDataCenter
• http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/inside-facebooks-lulea-data-center/
• http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/06/04/third-facebook-data-center-coming-to-iowa/
• http://readwrite.com/2014/04/29/facebook-data-center-iowa