(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The National Security Agency has revealed plans to build a 1-million-square-foot data center at Fort Williams in Utah, which borders Salt Lake and Tooele counties, according to a report by the Salt Lake Tribune.
The facility, whose footprint will be roughly three times the size of the Utah State Capitol building, will be built on a 200-acre site close to the Utah National Guard facility’s runway.
Citing officials familiar with the project, the Tribune reports that the project will bring as many as 1,200 high-tech jobs to the region.
The $1.6 billion project will be constructed in three major phases, with the first and second phases costing $800 million each for two 35-megawatt data centers.
The initial phase for the Tier III raised-floor facility is now in its design stage, which will begin construction in June 2010 for a March 2013 completion date, according to documents.
The NSA is a cryptologic intelligence agency under the nation’s Department of Defense.
The agency collects and analyzes foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protects government communications and information systems from other similar agencies.
Last week, President Obama signed a new funding bill that gave the project the go-ahead, approving an initial spending of $169.5 million.
It will also help fund the expansion of the power infrastructure at Fort Meade, Maryland where the NSA’s primary data center is located.
According to reports, the data center has struggled with a lack of power since 2006, when the NSA maxed out the Baltimore Gas & Electric power grid and failed to turn on several supercomputers it needed to expand its operations.
The new NSA facility marks the third massive Utah data center announcement, which also includes Oracle’s $285 million data center in West Jordan last May, and a $334 million eBay data center in West Jordan announced in December.
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