8 Most Unusual Data Centers in the World

When we think about a data center, we imagine big, open rooms filled with bland racks, focusing and highlighting only the fascinating processes that go inside the data center equipment.

Do you also feel that all data centers look boring and alike?

Well, think again, because here is a list of data centers which will make it hard for you to argue that internal processes are the only interesting aspects of a data center. So, allow me to show you some examples where the data center itself is interesting and unusual.

1. The Underwater Data Center – NATICK by Microsoft

Most people live near the coast and therefore, Microsoft decided to deploy a submersible data center in the sea. The data center will take advantage of hydrokinetic energy for power and will be able to utilize natural cooling from the water around it.

Under project Natick, a shipping container sized prototype is designed that will be able to store and process data workloads on the seabed near the Orkney Islands in Scotland. This data center is environmentally sustainable and prefabricated.

Fun fact: These data centers can be ordered according to size preference and left to function independently on the sea floor for years.

2. The Heavenly Data Center – Barcelona Supercomputing Center (in a former catholic church)

Torre Girona looks like any ordinary church from outside, but actually, it houses Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which is home to the MareNostrum supercomputer. This supercomputer is a part of the polytechnic university of Catalonia, it is used for a variety of research products including climate change, biomedicine, weather forecasting, etc.

Fun fact: This supercomputer uses 10,000 processors per second to perform 94 trillion operations.

3. Under a Mountain Data Center – Bahnhof Data Center

Bahnhof is a popular web host in Sweden, and it has a data center located in an abandoned nuclear bunker named Pionen, which can withstand a direct nuclear strike. Situated 100 feet below the ground, it was converted into a data center in 2007-2008. This data center seems fit to be a spy home with German submarine engines, simulated lighting, waterfalls, and greenhouses. The Bahnhof Data Center proudly describes its ambience as bond-villain.

Fun fact: The backup source in Bahnhof data center is powered by old submarine engines.

4. Data Center Safe from Class 5 Hurricane – Equinix’s NAP

Equinix’s NAP of America’s Data Center in Miami is built 32 feet above the sea level. It is among the largest single-building data centers with an area of 750,000 square feet across six stories. The data center is an engineering masterpiece as it is designed to withstand class 5 hurricane winds.

Fun fact:  In 2017, Hurricane Irma hit Florida landmass as a class 4 hurricane, testing the data centers claims. The storm caused extensive damage but Equinix’s NAP survived.

5. The literally Green Data Center – Citi Data Center

The 230,000 square feet facility of Citi Data Center in Frankfurt Germany was the first to earn the platinum rating in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) from the U.S. Green Building Council.

It has a unique design with vegetation coverage on the roof and a wall. The Citi Data Center uses fresh air cooling for almost 2/3 of the year. It uses reverse osmosis water treatment to reduce sediment buildup which is expected to save 50 million liters of water every year.

Fun fact: This facility uses harvested rainwater for all its irrigation needs.

6. The World’s Largest Data Center – The Citadel Campus

The Tahoe Reno 1 data center in The Citadel Campus, situated in Northern Nevada, has made this list not just because of its sheer size, but also because it is powered by 100% renewable energy. The data center space spans across an area of 7.2 million square feet, making it the largest data center in the world. This data center uses renewable energy with up to 650 megawatts of power.

Fun fact: It is the world’s largest technology ecosystem.

7. An Out of this World Data Center – Space Belt

To overcome the cybersecurity risks associated with terrestrial infrastructure for high value, highly sensitive data, Cloud Constellation Corporation plans to put a data center into the orbit. The project is known as SpaceBelt and consists of 8 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. It will offer up to 5 petabytes of space situated storage for data and deploy laser communication links between the satellites and allow transmission of data between different locations on Earth.

Fun fact:  This is not the only project with plan for a space-based data center, but it is the one with a funding of $100 million.

8. The Cool – Frugal Data Center: Lefdal Mine Data Center

Lefdal Mine Data Center is located in Norway and is built in a former underground mine, which was earlier used to excavating olivine (gemstone). What makes this data center unique is the fact that it is exclusively powered by renewable energy generated locally and cooled by a fjord in Norway.

Fun fact: Being in mine the data center is below sea level, allowing bringing in fjord’s water to the heat exchangers with ease without the use of pumps to lift the water.

Well, if you are wondering the data centers above are not an attempt at the vanity. Some of these data centers are actually intelligent responses to the encountered challenges that geography and technology have presented. Some of the others are creative responses to deal with the critical requirement of resilience and safety from physical attacks and natural disasters.