Data Center: Decision Approaches on $1 Billion NSA Facility
by John Rath for Data Center Knowledge
When the National Security Agency (NSA) announced plans for a massive $1 billion data center in Utah last year, it got the full attention of the data center construction community. After whittling down a large list of interested vendors, a final award of the contract to build the facility is approaching.
The Federal Business Opportunities web site lists 366 contractors on its initial ”interested vendors list.” Several “vendor days” were held to outline the scope of the project. Last April the construction bidders list was cut to five, and a final award announcement is expected in September.
The Army Corps of Engineers has outlined the rough parameters of the project, including a 30-megawatt first phase featuring 100,000 square feet of data center space and 900,00 square feet for technical support and administrative space.
The estimated costs for this 1 million square foot facility now range from $1 billion to $1.9 billion. Construction has been broken into three phases, with the first phase resulting in a data center with a 30 megawatt technical load, and including modular structural components. The 2010 defense budget describes the project as “required to provide a 30MW technical load data center and infrastructure for 65MW technical load data center capacity.”
