WASHINGTON — Overland Park, Kansas-based data center operator QTS Realty Trust says it will build a mega data center campus in Ashburn, Virginia.
QTS has paid a total of $53 million for 52 acres of land adjacent to its existing campus in Dulles, and has started construction on what will ultimately be a 700,000-square-foot data farm with 140 megawatts of gross power.
QTS says Phase 1 will open by mid-2018 and it is already more than 50 percent leased to an unnamed global health insurance provider. It expects Phase 1 to be fully leased before construction is finished.
QTS did not disclose the total investment it is making in the Ashburn project.
“We are excited to have additional sellable capacity in a strategic QTS market to expand our ecosystem of more than 130 customers currently supported within our Northern Virginia footprint,” said Chad Williams, QTS chief executive.
The news comes two weeks after Santa Clara, California-based Vantage Data Centers announced the acquisition of 42 acres in Ashburn, with plans to invest $1 billion in a data center campus that will total more than 1 million square feet.
Construction on that project begins in early-2018.
Northern Virginia leads the North American data center market, with more than a 30 percent market share, according to JLL. And Loudoun County leads the region’s data center concentration, with more than 75 data centers and 10 million square feet of data center space either operational or under development, according to the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development.
Prince William County is also a major data center hub, passing 3.5 million square feet of data center space this summer.
