Such large volumes of data are stored in special facilities called data centers
Although the earliest data centers were built in the 1940s, they became mainstream during the dot-com bubble of 1997-2000
Current technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, have pushed us into a data-driven world
Today, we have more than 7 million data centers handling small and industrial-scale operations
In this review article, we have mentioned the 12 largest data centers in the world by their size and capacity
They are all built on a large area and consume as much power as a mid-sized city
Did you know that global data centers consumed 416 TeraWatt-hours in 2016, around 40% more than the entire United Kingdom?
Location: Mumbai, India
Yotta NM1 is the first of five data center buildings located in the Integrated Yotta Data Center Park
The building shows 7,200 racks and consumes 50 MW of power
Once fully built, the facility will have a total capacity of 30,000 racks and 250 MW of power
A single NM1 data center can host cloud content, OTT operators, and critical government and enterprise applications
Location: Washington State, United States
IntergateSeattle is Sabey Data Center’s flagship facility
Located at 35th Ave S, Tukwila, WA 98168, has access to over 70 MW of power
Redundant electrical systems provide a resilient environment to minimize downtime
More specifically, it contains a redundant HVAC system and a generator capacity of 25 MW with 72 hours of running time at peak load
Location: Northern Virginia, United States
There are three facilities in the Reston CoreSite data center: VA1, VA2, and VA3
The latter is the largest with an area of more than 940,000 square feet
It provides access to almost all cloud, network, and managed service providers
The building includes a high-efficiency UPS system, variable speed fans for optical cooling, and an independent rooftop AC unit with an integrated de-humidification system
This facility serves as a cost-effective alternative to Ashburn, with favorable commuting options, tax incentives, and low-latency access to multiple providers
In fact, CoreSite is the only provider in Northern Virginia that offers direct connections to cloud services such as Oracle Cloud FastConnect, IBM Cloud Direct Link, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, and AWS Direct Connect
9 Tulip Data Center
Tulip Data Center Services Pvt Ltd is India’s leading enterprise data services provider
This multi-tiered facility is built for level 3 and level 4 standards
The facility is backed by 100 MW of power and has the capacity to accommodate 12,000 racks
An integrated building management system manages all essential components of a building, including power, air conditioning, and security
Being India’s most energy-efficient and ‘greenest’ data centre, the facility saves up to 35 MW of power at full capacity
Tulip services were developed to reduce complexity, streamline operations, and simplify vendor management
Its seating area (up to 1,500 employees) allows the company to offer fast support for its equipment located here
Location: Atlanta, United States
Atlanta Metro’s QTS facility has its own Georgia Power substation and direct fiber access to multiple carrier alternatives
It offers a variety of services, including colocation, dedicated data centers, and cloud services
The building has 46 support generators and 24 independent UPS systems
Electrical redundancy is achieved through 2 feeds from separate substations, which power 3 on-site 40MVA transformers
The facility also has an automated management system that manages critical power systems, and an automated control system that monitors air temperature, humidity, and water pressure
7 Utah Data Center
Location: Utah, United States
Utah Data Center was built to support the efforts of the Intelligence Community to monitor, protect, strengthen the nation’s security
900,000 square feet area used for technical support and administrative space
The remaining 100,000 square feet of the facility houses a mission-critical Tier III data center
The entire project (a complex of twenty large buildings) cost $15 billion
The data center is powered by parallel Cray XC30 supercomputers that can handle workloads in excess of 100 petaflops (100,000 trillion operations per second)
The building also includes a chiller plant, fire pump house, water treatment facility, 60 energy standby generators, visitor control center, power substation, and fuel facility for three days power backup
6 Lakeside Technology Center
Location: Chicago, United States
Digital Reality, an investment trust, operates more than 280 data center facilities totaling 35 million square feet of rentable space around the world
Its most impressive site, Lakeside Technology Center, is located at 350 East Cermak Road in Chicago
Today, it houses several types of data centers for financial companies
This includes 4 fiber vaults and 3 electric power feeds that provide the building with more than 100 megawatts of power
One of the unique features of this building is its cooling system, which is built using 85 million gallon tanks of refrigerated brine-like liquid
This large tank serves as a storage of thermal energy, which further reduces costs by running chillers during off-peak hours
5 Apple Mesa Data Center
Location: Arizona, United States
The Mesa Datacenter was originally developed by Tempe-based First Solar Inc In 2018, Apple revealed that it would spend $2 billion over the next decade to continue improving the facility
However, the company, known for its secrecy, would not share details about what happened inside the data center, citing security concerns
Apple calls this facility its global data command center, which employs 150 people working 10-hour shifts to monitor its operations data
To power the data center with green energy, Apple is building a 300-acre solar power plant in Florence, Arizona
It has a capacity of 50 MW, which is enough to power about 12,500 houses
It doesn’t make the data center 100% green but it offsets the power consumption in Mesa
Located near Cardiff in the West of Great Britain, CWL1 is the largest data center in Europe
CWL1 is currently the most efficient data center in the UK, with a low power usage effectiveness (PUE)
It has a 400 kV SuperGrid direct connection, a resilient generator, and a UPS system
Built to Tier III standards, the data center offers cloud hosting, private Data Halls, and colocation solutions at competitive prices
The facility also has tremendous growth potential with a wide selection of structural cages that support modular, shared suites
Blue Power Room, Switch TAHOE RENO 1 Citadel Campus
Location: Nevada, United States
The Citadel campus is built and owned by Switch, a Las Vegas-based company that develops and operates large data center facilities
Campus spaces are designed to exceed Tier IV standards
Its fiber network delivers nine millisecond latency to San Diego and Los Angeles, with a seven millisecond connection to the TAHOE RENO 1 data center on The Citadel Campus
With more than 260 patented technologies, Switch is one of the most innovative data center service providers
Integrated wiring system and thermal shield support apparatus for data centers
The data center also has a proprietary tri-redundant UPS power system and an always-on DDoS attack mitigation platform
Furthermore, Switch is the only company with a 100% Clean Energy Index
China Mobile’s data center is located in Inner Mongolia Information Park, Hohhot
With a service capacity of over 40,000 racks in a building of 720,000 square meters, it is one of the largest cloud computing data centers in the world
The entire facility was built on 106 hectares with an initial investment of $192 billion
It functions as a centralized operations support system, which provides enterprise services, centralized network management, and R&D for new technologies such as cloud computing and 5G
1 China Telecom Data Center
China Telecom, Inner Mongolia Information Park | Credit: hhhtnews
Location: Hohhot, China
Location: Hohhot, China
China Telecom has the largest internet data center in the world, and has secured more than 50% market share in the Chinese data center market
It has an extensive global network of over 400 data centers located in prime areas in Mainland China and overseas markets
Its main division in Inner Mongolia Information Park was built on 100 hectares, with an initial investment of $25 billion
This location was chosen for two main reasons:
Because Inner Mongolia is in the radiation belt of the Beijing-Tianjin economic circle, it is geographically convenient for data transmission and information services
Read: 5 Types of Data Centers [With Examples]
China Telecom’s data centers are widely used by telecommunications, cloud computing, and financial companies
Its cloud computing services are used by several tech giants (including Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent) as well as large companies and institutions
The company has established a ‘green’ data center policy to minimize energy consumption