$1 billion Switch data centre near Reno will be world’s biggest

The largest lithium battery factory in the world is getting a new neighbor at an industrial park east of Reno — the world’s biggest data center. Las Vegas-based Switch plans to invest $1 billion in the three million square foot “supernap” center. It will be built on 1,000 acres at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, where Tesla Motors is currently building its $5 billion gigafactory to make batteries to power its electric cars. Governor Brian Sandoval announced the plan in his State of the State address Thursday night, along with a $1 billion expansion of Switch data space in Las Vegas. The company operates two data center facilities in Las Vegas, providing security, power and cooling for stacks of thousands of servers owned by more than 1,000 clients that include eBay, Xerox, Zappos, Amazon, DreamWorks, Shutterfly and the U.S. government.

This will make Nevada the most digitally connected state in the nation.

Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, in a his speech to lawmakers in the Assembly chambers

Switch’s “supernap” project includes the development of an 804 kilometre fiber optic network it calls a “superloop” that will connect Reno, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco and dramatically increase the speed of information traveling between the cities. The company said it will place 50 million people within 14 milliseconds of data, with information moving between Reno and Las Vegas in only seven milliseconds. Switch expects the overall project to take five to 10 years but its first facility should be open by the second quarter of 2016. Sandoval said it’s the latest in a string of major victories in recent years as Nevada tries to diversify an economy heavily reliant on tourism and gambling revenue. The state also has been selected as one of six national training sites for unmanned aerial systems, or drones.

We became the home to dozens of other national brands who now employ Nevadans in industries of the future — cyber security, medicine, aviation, renewable energy, manufacturing, data storage and more.

Governor Brian Sandoval

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