Comment by kjkjadksj
5 hours ago
What is surprising is that to me where you see datacenter build out hand over fist isn’t really in the midwest where one might assume due to low land costs. Surprisingly, the heart of the datacenter buildout seems to be northern virginia. Not exactly a cheap land sort of former one horse town.
Cheap land is nice, but it's not the only concern. Data centres make a lot more money per square foot than things like farming, after all.
You also want cheap, reliable power. Ideally eco-friendly. And you want backbone connectivity, of course. Local suppliers who know the construction and maintenance needs of a data centre. No earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, or tornadoes. A local government that won't tax you too much, and that won't get upset when you employ very few people.
Considering the capital costs in fitting out these datacenters, the land being 10x more expensive doesn't move the needle much on total cost.
Latency I guess? I'm seeing this in my own country were everyone wants to be close to AMSIX. Which as you may have guessed also happens to be the most expensive and densely populated part of the country...
Yep, Northern Virginia gets you close to the BosWash megalopolis and pretty close to better than half of the US population. It also gives you access to a highly educated workforce and pretty much no natural disasters of note.
There's also network (pun intended) effects. Northern Virginia has been a major internet hub for a long time, with the first non-government peering point and a bunch of telecom companies, including AOL.
The data center land isn't that expensive anyway. Northern Virginia can be tremendously expensive, but the data centers are built out in the relative sticks. I'm sure the land would be cheaper in Wyoming, but it's cheap enough.