Salt Lake City-based server provider Tonaquint is currently recommissioning a 65,000-square-foot data center to survive tornado force winds. The company solutions provider acquired this facility from EdgeX in late 2023 and has been operating data centers in Boise, Idaho and St. George, Utah since 2008.
The new plans will convert the facility from a single-client operation to a multi-client data center. It will be a state-of-the-art facility, positioned for 100% uptime thanks to a structure that can survive tornado-force winds up to 310 miles per hour. It is located near Will Rogers World Airport on four-acres of land. The Tier III data center is 65,000 square feet with two 10,000 square fee data halls. Once the center is fully operational, it will initially deploy a 2.5 MW of critical IT workload, with the ability to expand up to 12 MW.
“This state-of-the-art facility will be well-prepared for the demands of new clients and the increasing capacity requirements of AI workloads,” The COO and CTO of Tonaquint Terry Morrison said via a press release. “These enhancements further position this facility as one of the region’s most future-forward and resilient data centers.”
The former EdgeX facility is located in Tornado Alley where 74 twisters occurred in 2023 and was just 25 miles away from the speediest tornado reported, with wind speeds up to 302 miles per hour. This data center will offer cloud co-location, backup, disaster recovery and network-as-a-service solutions to many organizations in the Mountain West and Southwest regions. The company also plans to make this facility ready for any AI workloads. Tonaqunit wants this data center to achieve 100% uptime despite being in a tornado region.
Currently, the company has begun redesigning the center and already started taking orders for an April delivery date. Having a data center with 100% uptime while located in a tornado-prone area is a serious undertaking, but one which could also be seen as a key selling point in the region. But that will be determined once the redesign is complete and official certification is received.
