High-tech company Switch considering expanding in Nevada

COURTESY / Switch

High-tech company Switch is searching for a new location to expand its rapidly growing collection of data centers with a new 2 million-square-foot technology campus.

And it might land in Nevada.

The data solutions and technology company has narrowed its search to two locations: Reno and Phoenix, Ariz., company officials announced today.

“In addition to a second location, Switch is also making a decision as to whether or not it will expand its presence in Southern Nevada or possibly chose both Reno and Phoenix for its future expansions,” said Switch CEO and Founder Rob Roy in a statement.

Switch operates two data center campuses in Las Vegas, where it provides security, power and cooling for thousands of server-stuffed racks owned by clients such as eBay, Zappos, Amazon and the U.S. government.

The company also owns and operates a fiber-optic network in Las Vegas that connects the networks to more than four dozen major Internet providers.

The new campus will be located between 6 and 12 milliseconds from its current technology campus to provide “geo-redundancy” for more than 1,000 data center clients.

The campuses must be far enough apart that a single disaster would be unlikely to affect both but close enough that data can quickly transfer from one center to the other.

“Redundancy is important for our clients, which is why we are undertaking this expansion,” Roy said.

Construction of the campus will happen in three phases, expected to begin before the end of 2014. Phase one begins with a 300,000-square-foot data center and phase two brings two more 300,000-square-foot centers.

In the third phase, Switch will build five more data centers at a new site in Southern Nevada, Northern Nevada or Arizona. It will take construction crews 15 months to complete the data centers once a location is selected.

Leaders at Switch say they have already started working with economic development officials in Arizona and Nevada.

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