QTS Delivers First Installment on Its Ashburn Ambitions

Late last week, QTS Realty Trust opened the doors on the first piece of its data center expansion in Ashburn, Virginia. They have commissioned the first 4MW of the first phase of 8MW, with their first customer already moved in and live ahead of schedule.  The other 4MW of the buildout will follow shortly.

QTS’s Ashburn data center is an ambitious three story facility designed to maximize usage of the available real estate in a market that has a lot less physical elbow room than it once did. When all four phases are complete, it will span some 180,000 square feet of raised floor data center space across 12 data halls. It will feature some 32MW of power, and the property has another 15 acres on which for QTS can add additional space as well as another 16MW of power.

With another property nearby having room for 60-100MW of data center space and their other project in nearby Manassas, QTS clearly has big plans for northern Virginia. If they build it all out, they could put 300MW worth of space to work over time before any further property purchases.

Behind QTS’s buildout is the insatiable demand of the hyperscale community. They are therefore carefully building out the company’s infrastructure with an eye toward delivering what those customers need: a highly monitorable and controllable environment. QTS is seeking to differentiate itself with hyperscale customers by maximizing the telemetry available to such customers via API.  It’s a dynamic market that definitely favors newer facilities built with such things in mind.

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Categories: Datacenter