This week, Tech Trends offers an overview of the latest happenings in the red-hot data center sector.
Will Bigger Be Better? Plans are underway in South Korea for one of the world’s largest data centers for artificial intelligence.
The Wall Street Journal reports the project would cost as much as $35 billion and generated up to 3 gigawatts of power, which is nearly three times the level of the $500 billion Stargate project in Texas that was recently announced in a White House ceremony. Construction on the South Korean project is slated to begin early this year, with a 2028 completion goal, and is designed to meet South Korea’s domestic needs – although it could later support the needs of other countries.
The new project is backed by an investor group organized under a company called Stock Farm Road that plans plan to contribute $10 billion to start, with more funds coming over the long term. Stock Farm Road is co-founded by Brian Koo, grandson of the founder of the South Korean conglomerate LG, and Amin Badr-El-Din, the founder and chief executive of BADR Investments, based in London and Jordan.
Alabama Bound. Core Scientific, a digital infrastructure company, announced plans to bring a $135 million data center to the AUBix Data Center in Auburn, Alabama.
AL.com reports the data center will launch with a capacity of 16 megawatts, with room for future expansion. The company will retain AUBix’s 11 full-time employees and plans to add a minimum of 20 full-time employees.
Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement that hailed the new data center as “a testament to our ability to attract cutting-edge technology companies.” Auburn Mayor Ron Anders added the new data center will create a local tax generation of $1.5 million a year that will be used to finance schools and public services.
Bluegrass State Bytes. Aphorio Carter Critical Infrastructure Fund LLC, a 506(c) private placement offering specializing in critical infrastructure and data center investments, announced the acquisition of the Louisville Data Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Simpsonville Data Center in Simpsonville, Kentucky, for a combined purchase price of approximately $35 million.
The Louisville Data Center sits on 30 acres while the Simpsonville Data Center occupies 21 acres. The properties were built in 2011, have 1,000 kW of critical power, are Tier III LEED Gold-certified, 102,500 square feet, and have the same Fortune 200 tenant.
Each data center supports up to 1 MW of critical IT load with an N+1 UPS configuration and a PUE of 1.7 for optimized energy efficiency. Both sites are equipped with 10,000 square feet of raised floor space and are positioned for long-term growth with an additional 10,000 square feet of shell space for future expansion.
“Louisville is emerging as a prime data center market, offering a strategic blend of low operating costs, robust fiber infrastructure, and access to major markets like Chicago and Atlanta,” said John Regan, chief investment officer of Aphorio Carter. “With affordable energy, tax incentives, and a business-friendly environment, this market presents a compelling opportunity for long-term growth in the digital infrastructure sector.”
Deeper in the Heart of Texas. Aligned Data Centers, a technology infrastructure company offering Scale Data Centers and Build-to-Scale solutions for global hyperscale and enterprise customers, announced its expansion in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area with a new data center campus in Mansfield, Texas.
According to the company, DFW-03 is based on a 27-acre site with an on-site substation designed to meet rising demand for AI, cloud and enterprise applications. The data center also features Aligned’s proprietary air and liquid cooling technologies, enabling customers to easily transition from air-cooled to liquid-cooled systems, or deploy hybrid cooling within the same data hall, to accommodate densities upwards of 350 kW per rack.
Initial capacity is anticipated to be available as early as the fourth quarter of this year.
“The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex provides the ideal foundation for Aligned’s continued expansion,” says Andrew Schaap, CEO of Aligned. “We are thrilled to bring our innovative data center solutions to Mansfield. Our focus will be on delivering the high-performance infrastructure our customers require to power their AI / cloud workloads and support the highest-density GPUs, with near-term power availability.”
Photo: Artist rendering of the expanded DFW-03 in Mansfield, Texas, courtesy of Aligned Data Centers
