Good Wednesday morning, and welcome to Data Center Digest.
We’re looking at the US data center market, the new technology that’s driving the space, and the movers that are making it all happen.

Today’s Newsletter:

🧮 SmithGroup launches new team focused on technology infrastructure design
🌍 Cogent looks to double its data center offering with old Sprint sites
Big Deals: Vantage files plans on huge campus outside Atlanta, DataBank completes expansion of seven sites
Resources: Tony Greyson shares some wisdom

Est. read time: 3mins, 39secs

- News -

Cogent plans to convert old Sprint facilities to data centers

This May, fiber firm Cogent Communications took over T Mobile’s entire wireline business, which formerly was Sprint’s wireline business until their merger in 2020. The sale included more than 40 legacy Sprint switch sites.

Cogent’s Expanding Reach: As part of the deal with T Mobile, Cogent, which focuses on wholesale colocation, will add 18,905 route miles of owned intercity fiber and 1,257 of owned metropolitan fiber.

The firm plans to reconfigure 45 existing Sprint data centers and switch sites into its own facilities.
The sites comprise over 1.3 million sq ft and already have 160MW of power. 

CEO Dave Shaefer said last week, “They were literally sitting empty, much like an office building that would have no tenants in it. And we saw value in that and said, we can repurpose that and create a growth business and selling high-capacity optical transport services by selling colocation in that footprint.”

Doubling Up: With the Sprint wireline assets, Cogent can enhance its reach in the optical wavelength and colocation service segments. They currently have yearly data center revenue of about $20 million. With the new Sprint sites, Cogent thinks they can more than double that.

This is in line with our ongoing theory that given a long enough time horizon, everything will be converted into data centers.

- News -

SmithGroup announces new tech team for mission-critical design

Global design and engineering firm SmithGroup launched its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) team to expand the firm’s capabilities to provide a full suite of technology solutions for clients.

The new team, which will operate at SmithGroup offices across the country, will be led by David Glenn, who’s coming from NV5 Engineering and will be joining the firm as the new Director of Information and Communications technology.

Some corporate language: The ICT group will specialize in audiovisual systems, electronic security, and IT/telecommunications. It will provide the latest knowledge of advanced technologies and processes to enhance a building’s performance and the experience of the user.

SmithGroup is one of the leaders in the design of mission-critical projects like data centers. A few of their recent projects include:

1. Equinix’s LA1 Data Center

2. Indiana University Cyberinfrastructure Building

3. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory Energy Systems Integration Facility

- Big Deals -

Vantage files on another behemoth outside Atlanta

According to DataCenterDynamics, Vantage has filed plans in Douglasville, GA to build 1.7 sq ft of data center space across three buildings.

Each building will be between 400k and 700k sqft, and the site is listed at over 100 acres, though the exact location has not been confirmed.

This would be Vantage’s first Georgia data center. They’ll be joining neighbors like Switch, Google, Microsoft, and T5 in the rapidly growing Atlanta market.  The project is expected to be completed in Q4 2025.

- Big Deals -

Databank expands seven colocation facilities in 12 months

DataBank has officially completed a seven-location expansion project across the US. Sites include Dallas, Las Vegas, San Diego, Irvine, Kansas City, and Atlanta.

The expansion project has added more than 15MW of power and 114,000 sq ft of data center space just over the last 12 months. All of which has been to existing facilities.

The data center provider, which offers colocation, cloud, and managed services, currently runs 74 data centers offering a combined 2.79 million sq ft of computing space.

- Resources -

Check out this great post on Linkedin last week by Tony Grayson at Compass Data Centers. Valuable breakdown of the tiered data center system and the different associated costs.
There are a few really great comments in the discussion as well. Definitely worth a read.

Thanks a lot for reading!

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- Taylor