Loudoun County Data Center Market Surges Behind RagingWire’s Innovative Facilities

Head 30 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., and you may stumble upon one of the mid-Atlantic’s best-kept secrets: a data center village that serves as the backbone of the digital world. 

Loudoun County, Virginia, is home to wineries, farms and some of the country’s most expensive homes. But it also has over 75 data center facilities covering 10M SF. The county’s data centers manage 70% of the world’s internet traffic. Continued growth throughout the region has led several owners and operators to lease space before their data centers even open.

In Loudoun County, the town of Ashburn has earned the title of "Data Center Alley." With a dense fiber network, a low risk of natural disasters, reliable and affordable utility power, convenient transportation and a significant concentration of wholesale co-location and cloud providers, Ashburn is attractive to companies looking for a large data center footprint with turnkey or build-to-suit infrastructure.  

Data center owner and operator RagingWire has built three data centers in Ashburn with a combined footprint of over 500K SF and 44.4 megawatts of critical power. With an eye toward the future, the company also recently procured a 78-acre parcel in Ashburn to build a securely fenced campus for seven new data centers.  

“The reason why we are doubling and tripling down in this market is the explosive growth,” RagingWire President and CEO Doug Adams said. “Our strategy in key markets like Ashburn is to have a campus with an operating data center, be building another data center and have preconstruction for a third data center, which is exactly what we’re doing.”

In March, RagingWire unveiled its 245K SF VA3 Data Center in Ashburn. The company is in the construction and pre-leasing process for its 200K SF VA4 Data Center, and it is in preconstruction mode for its VA5 Data Center. 

Customer demand is the driving force behind data center growth in Ashburn, as well as in RagingWire's other markets in Dallas, Chicago and the greater Silicon Valley region. The RagingWire team can deliver one of its mega-data centers for a single client or as part of a multi-tenant deployment in seven to nine months, Adams said.  

That is no simple task. There is a lot that goes into building a mission-critical data center. The VA3 Data Center, for instance, has about as much space as 125 houses, but with power systems that can generate enough juice to light up the equivalent of 4,000 houses. This kind of advanced technology can optimize the environment for servers that run websites with millions of users or the latest applications, including artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, streaming content, social media and the Internet of Things. 

In addition to offering power, cooling, telecommunications and security systems, RagingWire's VA3 Data Center features innovative customer amenities. Clients can take advantage of a multipurpose, 125-person conference center, lounge areas, meeting rooms, free WiFi, a break room stocked with snacks and beverages, a game room and a fitness center. During the warmer weather, customers at VA3 can venture outside onto a secure patio with chairs and green space. 

Tenants of other types of buildings have seen these amenities before. As live-work-play trends become more popular, offices and multifamily apartment complexes are implementing amenities that allow people to integrate multiple aspects of their lives. But much of the data center industry has not yet caught on to this trend, Adams said. 

RagingWire is one of the first data center companies to earn multiple awards and recognition for architectural design, including being named a finalist for the World’s Most Beautiful Data Center Award.

RagingWire’s attention to detail shines at VA3 with its use of bold colors and architectural elements. The building’s roofline is dressed with yellow boxes that screen the facility’s industrial cooling equipment. They also stand out sharply in contrast to the gray or blue night sky, brightening the space and creating a more vibrant work atmosphere for customers. After customers pass through the security lobby and check-in, they find themselves in the middle of a dramatic two-story atrium with multicolored walls, original artwork and an abundance of natural light. This is a rarity in data centers, which are often windowless.

Beyond Ashburn, RagingWire has built data centers recognized for innovative building design in Dallas and in Sacramento, California, the latter of which is now powered by 100% renewable energy. Outside the U.S., RagingWire customers have the ability to connect to one of the largest data center platforms in the world because RagingWire is part of NTT, a $100B, 240,000-employee company that operates 140 data centers across 20 countries. 

“If you need to create an edge PoP [point of presence] in Singapore along with your core here in Ashburn, we can accommodate that,” RagingWire Chief Revenue Officer Joe Goldsmith said. “It’s a well-thought-out, well-conceived solution.” 

As RagingWire continues to build its data center empire in Loudoun County and beyond, the company is keeping its customers top of mind.   

You can hear RagingWire discuss its development plans at the Data Center Investment Conference & Expo, East in Tysons, Virginia, on May 31. Find out more here.

This feature was produced in collaboration between Bisnow Branded Content and RagingWire. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.