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A 22,000 square foot data center costs about $5mm to build [1]. And these data centers can be located wherever is convenient. And clearly, forward planning is

• Swannie 14y ago
  And how much to build it to mil. spec? Probably x10 that number at a minimum. Sure, it's not a military establishment, but I am sure their security and 50 year event survivability is higher than any commercial DC facility. Add to that the fact that utilization in most DCs is terrible. A super computer will throw out significantly more heat than your "traditional" DC. Let's not even consider the op. ex. of moving the staff working who would work on the new facilities. Edit: And LOL at those figures being accurate. That's just the building. What about the costs for the fibre, all that copper, power infrastructure, cooling, false floors, air filtering, special construction needs such as sunken well floors (to contain any leaks from the cooling systems, for example).
• bdonlan 14y ago
  You'd be surprised how many locations are inconvenient. You need to find the right nexus of preexisting fiber trenches (digging new ones is super expensive!), cheap power, ideally some environmental factor to make cooling cheap (eg, a river nearby), and acceptable local zoning and laws.