Facebook won’t confirm it but the social media giant might be planning to build a fifth data center in its Altoona, Iowa data center campus. Called Project Sequelant, the new data center will occupy a million square feet (92,903 square meters) north of the present campus.
Will Calvert tells us why Facebook likes building data centers in Altoona, Iowa in this article from DataCenterDynamics:
Siculus Inc., a shell company used by Facebook for previous projects in the area, has filed documents for a huge expansion north of Facebook’s Altoona campus, first spotted by Des Moines Register.
Facebook has declined to comment on the possible expansion: “We always want to be sure we have the right approvals well in advance in the event that business needs dictate expansion of our operations, we do not have anything to announce at this time.”
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Altoona City Administrator Jeff Mark said: “We’re very excited to see another approximately one million sq ft data center come to the community, [the project] provides a lot of good jobs in the community, both from the contractors and the operations of the data center.” More than 1,100 people are involved in the construction of the company’s ongoing expansion and 75 percent of those workers come from Iowa.
Facebook arrived in Altoona in 2013, around the time the social media platform hit its first billion users. The campus near Interstate 80, originally known as Project Catapult, employs around 300 staff as of 2018 and continues to grow.
Iowa is a leader in the production of wind energy – in 2017, wind turbines were responsible for almost 37 percent of the state’s generated electricity, with 7,312MW of installed capacity, and another 732MW under construction. All Facebook data centers in Iowa are powered by 100 percent renewable energy and are being promoted as carbon-neutral.
