Netrality Knows Why Kansas Continues To Be A Magnet for Data Center Development
Built with a focus on sustainability and high-density computing, Netrality Data Centers' newest facility, KC2-7801 Nieman, developed in Shawnee, Kansas, is planned as an innovation hub for technology and to drive economic development in this part of the Midwest.
Connected by dark fiber to Netrality’s core interconnection facility, 11o2 Grand in Kansas City, Missouri, the new development offers the necessary strategic connectivity to encourage wholesale deployments with a focus on edge data centers that require high-density compute and exceptional connectivity.
Netrality notes that the sub-one-millisecond round trip latency for active-active replication between 1102 Grand and KC2-7801 Nieman ensures rapid and secure data transfer, effectively supporting complex and distributed operations.
The new colocation facility also highlights the region's identification as a U.S. Department of Commerce Tech Hub, one of 31 such sites inaugurated last year. As such, the KC2-7801 Nieman data center is ready to provide data center services to key technology sectors, including healthcare, manufacturing, finance, technology and government.
At launch, the KC2-7801 Nieman data center is offering 5 MW of critical power , four data halls, N+1 redundancy in backup power generation, multi-layered security to support critical operations, and three diverse points of entry.
The data center's design also supports expansion up to 12 MW total availability for critical power as demand grows.
What Makes Kansas a Choice Location for Data Centers?
The easy answer is that the hyperscalers have already identified Kansas as a place to build.
Meta started building their Kansas data center in 2022 and will have invested over $800 million in the area by the time the data center is commissioned.
In March of this year, Google announced the investment of $1 billion to build a data center and develop new-to-the-grid carbon-free energy capacity in Kansas.
And Kansas already ranks high in renewable, carbon-free power, sitting at fourth place in U.S. states in the production of wind-generated power, with a generation capacity over 7 gigawatts from wind power alone from more than 4000 existing wind turbines.
Among other factors, this has kept the cost of energy in Kansas relatively low, and with power being generated renewably and sustainably, helps data centers meet their own sustainability goals.
Climate, Cooling and Connectivity Advantages
Kansas is also a location with little risk of weather-related or tectonic disasters, with the biggest threat likely to be tornados, which have well understood dynamics, and established building codes that do much to mitigate that potential threat.
The climate is sufficiently moderate that the new Netrality data center is using Aligned's Delta Cube (Delta 3) air cooling arrays to support its high-density computing design. The air-based cooling platform's waterless design increases the efficiency and sustainability of the data center across various power densities, significantly lowering energy consumption.
And, of course, for U.S. customers, Kansas is centrally located and has significant connectivity, making it an appropriate central location for data center customers that are potentially latency-sensitive.
Who is Netrality?
Capitalized with a long-term investment from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), Netrality is among the largest privately-held owner-operators of core interconnection facilities in the U.S.
While known as an operator of strategic interconnected data centers, Netrality currently operates 18 colocation, powered shell, and wholesale data centers that total 3.3 million square feet of space across six markets in North America, including Kansas, Houston, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Indianapolis.
The company targets the business need for low-latency edge computing, highlighting its connectivity and rack-space availability in these urban markets. Currently these facilities offer a combined 100 MW of capacity.
Details on each of the existing Netrality data centers can be found here.
Grand opening of the Netrality KC2-7801 Neiman Data Center.