Flexential Announces Its Largest Data Center Expansion to Date, Meeting IT Infrastructure Needs During the Pandemic and Beyond

By AIT News Desk On May 8, 2020

Company to build more than 350,000 square feet of space on Hillsboro, Ore. campus, also adding to existing Hillsboro data center to solve immediate needs

Flexential, a leading provider of data center colocation and hybrid IT solutions, announced it will build its largest data center to date, 358,000 sq. ft. on 20 acres of land outside of Portland, Ore., adding to its Pacific Northwest campus. The Portland–Hillsboro 3 data center will be part of the FlexAnywhere ecosystem, connected to the company’s 100 GB network backbone. It will meet the growing and anticipated demand caused by accelerated digital transformation and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased data production, straining bandwidth and network resources.

“In a time when some companies are scaling back, Flexential is moving forward with a multi-million dollar investment in our infrastructure, building our largest data center to date, providing inventory and low latency connections for our customers to manage their technology and SaaS requirements,” Flexential Chief Executive Officer Chris Downie said. “The mounting customer demand and disruption to the supply chain are making cloud and connectivity even more relevant in areas such as healthcare, transportation, technology and financial services. We are adding solutions and expanding capacity to meet the current and anticipated needs to support this new way of doing business during and after the pandemic.”

To meet the long-term need, Flexential will break ground this summer on a highly connected, 36 MW state-of-the-art data center on Flexential’s Hillsboro campus, complementing the two existing Flexential data centers in the market. The campus will offer customers a total of nearly 700,000 sq. ft. of space and almost 60 MWs of power. The new Portland–Hillsboro 3 data center is available now under pre-lease.

“Flexential was the first colocation company to build in Hillsboro 20 years ago and has continued to innovate and grow ever since, making significant investments and providing critical infrastructure services to the region. Over the years, the company provided new services to its data centers, including a cloud on ramp and connections to several subsea cables. We look forward to Flexential being a part of our community for years to come,” according to Dan Dias, director, Economic and Community Development, Hillsboro, Ore.

This new data center will connect to Flexential’s Portland–Hillsboro 2 data center, which is also expanding this month by 66,000 sq. ft. and adding more than 5 MW. Portland-Hillsboro 2 includes multi-tenant cloud, private cloud, DRAAS and a full suite of data protection capabilities, and is home to ONTAP AI, a fully optimized and tested infrastructure solution for AI workloads, available to data scientists wanting to take a test drive. It is the first Nvidia-certified colocation site globally to host the program.

“Oregon is a very appealing market for our customers who seek an alternative to Silicon Valley because Hillsboro provides lower power rates, no sales tax, a lower threat of earthquakes, and the fastest, lowest latency subsea cable connectivity to the APAC region,” added Downie. “Plus, Hillsboro provides some of the lowest latency access to AWS and Azure.”

Flexential’s Hillsboro 3 data center will have access to renewable, green energy options and offer the highest levels of cooling efficiency and high-density capabilities, capable of handling deployments of more than 1500 watts per sq. ft. for the most intensive applications, including AI.

As part of the FlexAnywhere ecosystem, Hillsboro 3 will use the connectivity benefits of all carriers within the Portlandregion, including the FlexAnywhere  network fabric, which ensures maximum performance and reliability. Included is access to the Wave metro fiber system that will connect up to 14 existing or planned data centers and will service seven trans-Pacific submarine cable systems. The newest ring boasts 3,456 strands of fiber optic network, of which 1728 run between Flexential’s Hillsboro 2 and Hillsboro 3 facilities.

Hillsboro 3 will have direct access to Flexential’s NAP of the Northwest facility that hosts two high capacity trans-Pacific cables: New Cross Pacific and Hawaiki, which connect Hillsboro and Asia Pacific, including Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Access to additional trans-Pacific subsea cable destinations is planned for the future.

The Hillsboro 3 and Hillsboro 2 expansions build on the Flexential momentum started in 2019, when the company added nearly 150,000 sq. ft. of white floor to its various data centers to serve growing financial services, healthcare and technology customers.