Microsoft Reels In Columbus AI Data Center Expansion

It seems as if a day doesn’t go by without another billion dollar data center campus project getting announced. But yesterday we saw one go the other way all of a sudden. Microsoft has pulled back from its plans to build three data center campuses in the Columbus OH metro area.

Microsoft had planned to pour over $1B into the project, with locations in Hebron, Heath, and Albany. Central Ohio has been getting substantial colocation attention of late. In fact, Columbus recently saw Lightpath move in with plans for a new metro network to help with hooking everything up.

According to the tech giant, land at two of the sites will still be farmable and they will still be moving ahead with roadway and utility project upgrades. And they might one day still move ahead with the data center projects. But for now, they don’t need the colo space. In fact, reports are that they’ve pulled out of planned leases of “a couple hundred megawatts” of capacity.

The region remains hot, but this news could indicate a broader oversupply situation when it comes to the AI colo buildout. In fact, not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I forecasted this sort of thing in my New Year’s predictions. Bottom line is that the industry is so well funded and so good at building data center capacity that it can easily keep pace with hype and outpace actual demand.

Now with uncertainty roiling the markets and recent memories of supply chain constraints, I have to wonder if that time isn’t arriving sooner and more sharply than expected. Hopefully not.

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Categories: Artificial Intelligence · Datacenter