Google has been named by the local Eagle Mountain City government as having acquired 300 acres of land in Eagle Mountain, Utah, with the city also stating that “the site is being considered for a potential future data center”. Notably, Eagle Mountain is situated ~31 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Google Data Center – Eagle Mountain, Utah
Google has indicated that it will spend $1.2bn in Eagle Mountain, Utah over the next 30 years. However, the company presently does not have a definitive timeline for the site’s development.
In order for Google to consider developing the site, Eagle Mountain City partnered with Utah County, Alpine School District, Unified Fire Service Area, the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, and the Economic Development Corporation of Utah.
Google Cloud Region – Salt Lake City, Utah
In February 2020, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) launched a new data center region in Salt Lake City, Utah (us-west3). Particularly, this region enables flexibility for GCP customers to distribute workloads across the western U.S., including Google’s existing cloud regions in Los Angeles and Oregon.
Google notes that industries including healthcare, financial services, and IT are investing in Salt Lake City. For example, PayPal is migrating significant portions of its digital payments infrastructure to the new Salt Lake City region.
Facebook Data Center – Eagle Mountain, Utah
In addition to Google, another hyperscale company, Facebook has made a $1.0bn+ commitment to data centers in Eagle Mountain, Utah.
In 2018, Facebook broke ground on its Eagle Mountain, Utah data center campus location at 1275 North Community Circle, with its initial buildings coming on-line in 2021. Collectively, Facebook is building 5 data centers at this campus as part of a $1.0bn+ investment, spanning 2.4 million sqft. Indeed, this implies a cost of $417 per sqft to develop this data center campus.
Multi-Tenant Data Center Operators – Greater Salt Lake City, Utah
Beyond hyperscale companies Google and Facebook, multi-tenant data center (MTDC) operators have a growing presence in greater Salt Lake City. Specifically, these MTDC developers and operators include Aligned Energy, DataBank (DigitalBridge), Flexential, Novva Data Centers, and Cirrus Data Services.
Utah’s value proposition includes renewable energy, cost-effective location, and one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the U.S. For example, the state’s high elevation and dry desert climate allow for efficient cooling of data centers, enabling energy costs 16% below the U.S. average.
