Rob Morris, CEO of Texas-based Skybox Datacenters, is selected as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year® Southwest Award.

DALLAS, May 1, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Skybox Datacenters CEO Rob Morris is a finalist for Ernst & Young LLP's (EY US) prestigious Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2025 Southwest Award, the organization has announced. Now in its 40th year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program celebrates the bold leaders who disrupt markets through the world's most ground-breaking companies, revolutionizing industries and making a profound impact on communities.

Morris, co-founder of the prominent hyperscale data center developer, owner and operator, is among the CEOs and founders representing 42 companies chosen for their entrepreneurial spirit, purpose, growth and lasting impact in building long-term value.

"We're honored to be recognized alongside such a remarkable group of innovators," said Morris, of Texas-based Skybox Datacenters. "Data centers are the backbone of our digital economy and we're proud to drive the development and infrastructure that enable them. As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, we remain focused on building what's next—together with our clients, communities, and industry partners."

Skybox is ranked among the top 10 data center developers in North America. Morris has 16 years of experience in mission critical facility design and construction with a unique focus in high performance computing for machine learning and core computing.

Entrepreneur Of The Year honors business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. The program celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or who raised outside capital to grow their company; transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory; and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to strengthen it for the future.

Regional award winners will be announced on June 21st during a special celebration in Dallas and will become lifetime members of an esteemed community of Entrepreneur Of The Year alumni from around the world. The winners will then be considered by the National judges for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards, which will be presented in November at the annual Strategic Growth Forum®, one of the nation's most prestigious gatherings of high-growth, market-leading companies.

About Skybox Datacenters

Skybox Datacenters is a national data center developer, owner, and operator headquartered in Dallas, Texas. With a customer-centric approach, Skybox delivers purpose-built, mission critical facilities for speculative, campus, powered shell, turn-key, and build-to-suit project capabilities through an active development and operations teams across the United States. For more information, visit skyboxdatacenters.com

About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 60 countries globally. The US program consists of 17 regional programs whose panels of independent judges select the regional award winners every June. Those winners compete for national recognition at the Strategic Growth Forum® in November where National finalists and award winners are announced. The overall National winner represents the US at the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ competition. Visit ey.com/us/eoy.

About EY

EY is building a better working world by creating new value for clients, people, society and the planet, while building trust in capital markets. Enabled by data, AI and advanced technology, EY teams help clients shape the future with confidence and develop answers for the most pressing issues of today and tomorrow.

For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

Media Contact

Katie McJunkin, Skybox Datacenters, 1 214-686-7870, Katie@SkyboxDatacenters.com, https://skyboxdatacenters.com/

SOURCE Skybox Datacenters

Goldman Sachs honors Skybox Datacenters CEO Rob Morris as one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs at its 2024 Builders and Innovators Summit. Morris is the co-founder of Skybox Datacenters, a prominent hyperscale data center developer, owner and operator ranked among the top 10 data center developers in America.

DALLAS, Oct. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is recognizing Rob Morris, CEO and co-founder of Skybox Datacenters, as one of the Most Exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2024 at its Builders and Innovators Summit in Healdsburg, California.

Goldman Sachs selected Morris from multiple industries to be honored at the two-day event. Morris leads Skybox Datacenters, a prominent hyperscale data center developer, owner and operator. Skybox is ranked among the top 10 data center developers in North America. Morris has 16 years of experience in mission critical facility design and construction with a unique focus in high performance computing for machine learning and core computing.

"As high-performance computing, AI, and machine learning continue to advance, I'm excited for the future impact we can make together in this transformative industry." - Rob Morris, CEO

"It's an honor to be recognized alongside such an impressive group of forward-thinking individuals," said Morris, who co-founded Texas-based Skybox Datacenters in 2014. "Data centers are essential to our modern economy and way of life, and we're proud to be at the forefront of hyperscale data center development. As high-performance computing, AI, and machine learning continue to advance, I'm excited for the future impact we can make together in this transformative industry."

"I am thrilled to recognize Rob Morris as one of the most exceptional entrepreneurs of 2024," said David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. "Rob and his team have built an impressive business that continues to grow at scale. We look forward to bringing this year's cohort together to share insights on topics ranging from the evolving geopolitical landscape and accessing new pools of capital to using the power of storytelling to reach new audiences."

In its 13th year, Goldman's Builders and Innovators Summit is the can't miss gathering for Founders and CEOs of high growth companies. Previous honorees have gone on to lead multi-billion dollar companies, both in the private and public markets. In addition to honoring the most exceptional entrepreneurs each year, the Summit consists of general sessions and clinics led by seasoned entrepreneurs, academics and business leaders as well as resident scholars.

About Skybox Datacenters

Skybox Datacenters is a national data center developer, owner, and operator headquartered in Dallas, Texas. With a customer-centric approach, Skybox delivers purpose-built, mission critical facilities for speculative, campus, powered shell, turn-key, and build-to-suit project capabilities through an active development and operations teams across the United States. For more information, visit skyboxdatacenters.com

About Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs is a leading global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.

Press related questions about Skybox Datacenters, please contact Katie McJunkin at Katie@SkyboxDatacenters.com

Press related questions about the Summit or Goldman Sachs, please contact Sophia Anthony at Sophia.Anthony@gs.com

Media Contact

Katie McJunkin, Skybox Datacenters, 1 214 686 7870, katie@skyboxdatacenters.com, https://www.skyboxdatacenters.com/

SOURCE Skybox Datacenters

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has long been a hub for data centers but an unprecedented wave of interest is changing how these huge facilities are built.

Widespread interest in artificial intelligence is fueling demand for bigger and more powerful data centers.

That has raised concerns in some corners about the amount electricity and water used by such facilities, sparking pushback from policymakers, environmental groups and residents in places such as Virginia, Georgia and California. In North Texas, residents in Granbury, southwest of Fort Worth, voiced concerns this summer about the noisiness and power use of a very specific kind of data center: a cryptocurrency mine.

But data center sentiment remains largely positive in DFW, which has only added fuel to the fire of development activity.

"These buildings are really important. They're how we access the financial system," said Haynes Strader, chief development officer at Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters LLC, which has facilities across the Metroplex and more on the way. "It's how our bank accounts work, and how we keep airplanes tracked in the sky. Everything you do every day for the most part, other than maybe suntanning in your backyard, all interacts with a data center somehow."

Years of change

The Metroplex has been an important data center market for a long time, home to facilities stuffed with serves such as the Infomart in Dallas. But things began to change a couple of years ago: the pandemic-related supply chain snarls and general economic uncertainty slowed data center development. But then interest in AI, especially generative AI like ChatGPT, began to rapidly accelerate, and the available data center space was quickly snapped up.

DFW saw a record 300 megawatts of data center capacity leased in 2022, compared with an annual norm of about 35 megawatts, said Brant Bernet, a CBRE senior vice president who specializes in data centers. The spike has been driven by the proliferation of AI and hyperscale computing and their attendant power needs.

Dallas-Fort Worth now accounts for about one-tenth of the primary U.S. data center market, a proportion second only to Northern Virginia, according to a CBRE report.

CBRE estimated there were 416 megawatts of capacity under construction as of the second quarter, with about 382 megawatts of that already pre-leased.

Virtually every center coming online until about 2025 is already pre-leased, said Curt Holcomb, managing director of data center solutions at JLL. He doesn’t anticipate seeing an appreciable amount of supply available until probably the end of 2025 or into 2026...

Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters broke ground on a new facility in Lancaster Tuesday morning, adding to the growing number of data centers built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

When the first phase of Skybox’s Lancaster project opens in 2026, it will help with demand for data centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Data centers house computing machines and related equipment that are often the backbone of technology-reliant services like streaming or social media.

At completion, the facility is estimated to use 300 megawatts of power, said Haynes Strader, the chief development officer for Skybox. The first phase of the project, which sits adjacent to an Oncor Electric delivery site, will use 150 megawatts of power.

Click to read more.

On more than 100 acres in southern Dallas County, work has started on PowerCampus Dallas. A build-to-suit project that could take different configurations, this will be a significant industrial and computing hub in an area that has often been overlooked by businesses.

Up to 1 million square feet could be built, which would likely necessitate hundreds, if not thousands, of construction jobs. The facilities could have 300 megawatts of computing power combined, a significant addition to DFW’s data center scene.

PowerCampus Dallas is a partnership between Skybox Data-centers, Principal Asset Management and Bandera Ventures, the latter of which bought the land in April 2023.

Skybox is no stranger to big data center projects, having developed others near Chicago, Houston and Washington, D.C. But Skybox CEO Rob Morris said last year he expects PowerCampus Dallas to “raise the bar in the North Texas data center market and beyond.”

This story is about one of the winners in Dallas Business Journal's Best Real Estate Deals, honoring the best new projects and deals of 2023.

Developers have started construction on a huge new data center campus in southern Dallas County. Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters and developer Bandera Ventures are building the PowerCampus Dallas project on 100 acres in Lancaster near Interstate-35E. By Steve Brown

The deal, a partnership with Bandera Ventures and Principal Asset Management, "brings together expertise in multiple disciplines that are critical for delivering significant capacity in this dynamic data center market," Skybox Datacenters CEO Rob Morris said. Click through to learn more about this project and to find out why DFW is such a hot landing spot for these kinds of facilities.

Skybox Datacenters, an expert mission-critical data center developer, owner, and operator, announced today it has commenced the development of a new data center campus, PowerCampus Dallas, in partnership with developer Bandera Ventures and Principal Asset Management. The campus will boast up to 300 megawatts (MW) of power supported by a private onsite substation, with up to one million-square-feet of data center space. PowerCampus Dallas, located just south of the heart of downtown Dallas, is in one of the fastest-growing data center submarkets in the nation. The campus is surrounded by some of the strongest infrastructure in the region, providing seamless interconnections and unparalleled expansion capabilities.

Skybox Datacenters is joining the data center building boom south of Dallas. Skybox will partner with developer Bandera Ventures and Principal Asset Management on PowerCampus Dallas, a 300-megawatt project in Lancaster, Texas, the companies said today.

The Dallas project will be the ninth campus for Skybox and continues its development activity in the Texas market. Skybox built its first project in Houston, and has two projects underway in Austin, including a massive 600-megawatt project in Hutto.

“PowerCampus Dallas will raise the bar in the North Texas data center market and beyond,” said Rob Morris, CEO of Skybox Datacenters. “This partnership brings together expertise in multiple disciplines that are critical for delivering significant capacity in this dynamic data center market.”

Excellent white paper by Shell Energy featuring the Skybox Houston I HPC deployment enabling exceptional utilization rates with cutting edge immersion cooling technology to help meet their datacenter sustainability goals.

Skybox Datacenters and Prologis plan to build a massive 600-megawatt campus near Austin, Texas which will offer up to 4 million square feet of data center space. The project will build additional momentum for data center development in Austin, which has become a magnet for tech companies.

The Skybox PowerCampus Austin will be located in Hutto, which is about 25 miles north of Downtown Austin, and is scheduled to begin delivering capacity in 2024. The project will be located just north of Skybox Austin I, a 30-megawatt (MW) data center facility in Pflugerville which will come online later this year.

The PowerCampus Austin development agreement was approved Thursday night by the Hutto City Council.

Customers expect their data to be available anytime, anywhere. That’s where Skybox comes in—they own, operate and develop data centers that serve enterprise clients across the nation. Keeping data online is their core focus.

To answer this challenge, it’s necessary for Skybox to run equipment 24/7 without interruption. Since data centers require a lot of power—an industrial-sized center uses as much energy as a small town—Skybox turned to us for a solution.

Skybox has broken ground on a new data center in Austin, Texas.

Announced in March 2022, Skybox Austin I will be a 30MW, 141,240 square-foot (13,100 sqm) facility located in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville and built in partnership with industrial real estate giant Prologis.

“Dirt is moving! Thank you to everyone that came out to support and celebrate the groundbreaking of Skybox Austin I,” the company said on LinkedIn this week. “We're beyond excited to see this project to fruition!”

The facility is being built on greenfield land on the corner of Meister Lane and New Meister Lane. The first phase is due for delivery by December 2022. The campus is master-planned to support up to two 141,000 sq ft facilities.

Skybox first partnered with Prologis in early 2021, when the two companies filed to convert an empty warehouse owned by the real estate firm into a data center in Elk Grove, Illinois. Around the same time it officially announced plans for Elk Grove, Skybox announced it was selling its Houston, Texas, data center to Element Critical.

In December, Prologis filed for permission to develop a new 500,000 sq ft (46,500 sqm) data center on a 19.5-acre industrial site that it currently owns in Sterling, Virginia. Additional filings suggest Prologis is again partnering with Skybox Datacenters for the project, though the companies haven't confirmed this yet.

On its site, Skybox says it has developments in Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Northern Virginia, and Santa Clara.

Other firms have previously tried to bring data centers to Pflugerville. Baryonyx-backed WindData planned a wind-powered facility in the city circa 2009; the company planned up to five buildings and 10MW of wind capacity. By 2012, however, the project had been repeatedly delayed and never came to fruition.

2012 also saw Dimension Capital Partners – through Arista Data Centers – plan a $210m data center on 40 acres in Pflugerville, west of the Stone Hill Town Center. That development also seemingly never arrived.

The Greater Chicago Data Center Market is getting two new players in less than a week, as Aligned and Skybox Datacenters have opened new facilities in the Western suburbs near O’Hare Airport. The new entrants highlight the strong rebound in the Chicago market, which has gained momentum following the passage of new tax incentives in 2019.

Chicago is one of the nation’s premier markets for data center services, occupying a central place in America’s geography and mission-critical infrastructure. The Windy City is also a major hub for Internet and financial infrastructure, with active communities of data-center users and service providers.

Chicago is America’s third-largest city, with an active business market with nearly 40 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the metro area. After several years of steady but unspectacular leasing, interest in the Chicagodata center market has rebounded in the last year, sparked by economic incentives and new projects in both the Downtown and Suburban Chicago areas.

Chicago is distinctive in that it sees demand for data-center space from a wide range of industries. It is home to major trading exchanges for stocks, commodities and options, making the city a hotbed of activity for the financial services industry.

The Chicago region has become a favored location for hosting, colocation and cloud computing companies. Chicago sees strong demand from the enterprise sector as well, both for primary data centers and as backup/disaster recovery facilities.

And according to CBRE hyperscale data center activity has started to rise as users and colocation providers take advantage of state tax incentives.

According to JLL, commercial real-estate services company, total Chicago data-center inventory comes to 5.07 million square feet (SF) and 631.6 megawatts (MW). And there is plenty of space not spoken for for new entries to the market.

There is a total of 426, 500 SF and 62.0 MW of vacant space, as well as lots of new construction in the sector underway, with data-center construction reaching 190,000 SF and 18.5 MW.

Chicago saw significant development activity in 2021, delivering around 15 MW of new supply in the first half of the year, CBRE reported. New construction in Chicago was driven largely by growing hyperscale demand of multi-tenant data center facilities.

Here are some examples of this new construction:

• Aligned Energy has just opened its ORD-01 data center in Northlake and commenced construction on ORD-02, a 228,768 SF building scheduled to support between 36 and 52 megawatts of capacity.
• Skybox Datacenters and Prologishave just opened a 30-megawatt, 189,000 square foot project in Elk Grove Village the leading data center hub in the Suburban Chicago market.
• Prime Data Centerswill invest $1 billion to create a three-building, 750,000 square foot data center campus in Elk Grove Village.
• NTT Global Data Centers Americas is building out the second building on their Itasca facility, with completion scheduled for this coming fall.

Skybox data Centers is again partnering with real estate firm Prologis to develop a data center in Austin, Texas.

Skybox Austin I will be a 30MW, 141,240 square-foot (13,100 sqm) facility located in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville. Construction is due to begin by December 2022.

“Often called the Silicon Valley of Texas, it’s no secret that Austin has become a huge draw for some of the nation’s largest technology firms,” said Rob Morris, Skybox CEO. “The unprecedented volume of new businesses, their employees and investment in the region is creating a new epicenter for technology and innovation.” Skybox Austin I will provide a highly-secure, modern data center option for growing mission-critical requirements. ”

The company has lined up incentives from Pflugerville Community Development Corporation that offer up to $1.5 million over 10 years to support job creation by tenants at the new data center. To qualify for the grant, Skybox must construct a facility prior to Jan. 1, 2024, secure at least one tenant and certify a minimum investment of $50 million. The PCDC said the project – codenamed Project Charge in city documents — will see up to $548 million in investment.

“We look forward to working with Skybox Datacenters and Prologis on this project that is bringing significant investment, infrastructure improvements and a solid tax base for the City of Pflugerville,” PCDC Executive Director Amy Madison said in a press release announcing the project.

Exactly where the facility will be located wasn’t shared, but Prologis owns a number of industrial buildings on Center Lake Drive and Howard Lane. Amazon and Facebook/Meta have previously leased industrial space in Pflugerville.

Skybox first partnered with Prologis in early 2021, when the two companies filed to convert an empty warehouse owned by the real estate firm into a data center in Elk Grove, Illinois. Around the same time it officially announced plans for Elk Grove, Skybox announced it was selling its Houston, Texas, data center to Element Critical.

In December, Prologis filed for permission to develop a new 500,000 sq ft (46,500 sqm) data center on a 19.5-acre industrial site that it currently owns in Sterling, Virginia. Additional filings suggest Prologis is again partnering with Skybox Datacenters for the project, though the companies haven't confirmed this yet.

In the latest release, Skybox said; “With access to expansion capacity in Austin and hundreds of assets across the United States, Skybox and Prologis present users with unparalleled scale and a proven roadmap for future growth and opportunity.”

While Austin has a sizeable number of data centers – including Switch Inc’s Data Foundry facilities and its new development at Dell’s nearby Round Rock HQ – Pflugerville itself has minimal data center presence. Local colo firm operates an 8,000 sq ft (743 sqm) facility at 3804 Helios Way.

Other firms have previously tried to bring data centers to Pflugerville. Baryonyx-backed WindData planned a wind-powered facility in the city circa 2009; the company planned up to five buildings and 10MW of wind capacity, By 2012 however, the project had been repeatedly delayed and never came to fruition.

2012 also saw Dimension Capital Partners – through Arista Data Centers – plan a $210m data center on 40 acres in Pflugerville, west of the Stone Hill Town Center. That development also seemingly never arrived.

Austin has become one of the hot new destinations for startups and tech companies. It’s no surprise that it’s also gaining traction as a home for data centers.

Skybox Datacenters and Prologis are partnering on a new data center in Pflugerville, a northern suburb of Austin. The Skybox Austin I project is the latest collaboration between data center developer Skybox and Prologis, one of the world’s largest logistics companies. The partnership – Skybox, Powered by Prologis – launched with a data center in Suburban Chicago and will continue with another in Pflugerville.

“It’s no secret that Austin has become a huge draw for some of the nation’s largest technology firms,” said Rob Morris, the CEO of Skybox Datacenters. “The unprecedented volume of new businesses, their employees and investment in the region is creating a new epicenter for technology and innovation.”

Oracle, Tesla and Digital Realty are among the companies that have relocated their corporate headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin over the past several years, burnishing the region’s reputation as the “Silicon Hills” due to its strong concentration of semiconductor and computer companies, led by Dell Technologies and AMD.

The partnership between Prologis and Skybox highlights the growing intersection of logistics and digital infrastructure, which are both more important than ever in supporting global business through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Skybox Datacenters is based in Dallas and focuses on purpose-built facilities for the wholesale data center market, working with enterprise, hyperscale and colocation customers. Skybox Austin I will be a 30-megawatt (MW), 141,240 square-foot facility, and marks Skybox’s entrance into the Austin market. Skybox knows the Texas data center market well, having launched in Houston and then expanded to Dallas.

“We’ve always been intrigued by Austin,” said Morris. “Austin has been an underserved market, and we saw capacity in Austin dry up about 12 months ago.”

While not as large as Dallas or Houston, Austin has been an active location for data center capacity, with a strong local provider in Austin-based Data Foundry as well as facilities from larger platforms like Digital Realty, CyrusOne, Flexential and Element Critical.

Switch made a major push into the Austin market in 2021, as it acquired Data Foundry and then announced plans for a 1.5 million square foot data center campus adjacent to the Dell Technologies global headquarters in Round Rock. More new players are likely to follow.

Morris believes the location in Pflugerville, just south of the Dell headquarters campus in Round Rock, will allow Skybox to bring capacity to market quickly and efficiently. The site is supported by two substations and is supplied by ONCOR, which offers more competitive rates than Austin Energy.

In other markets, Skybox has offered powered shell facilities and build-to-suit projects as well as large-footprint wholesale data centers. The Austin property will feature turnkey data halls sized at 2 to 4 megawatts of capacity.

“It’s the next evolution of our turnkey product,” said Morris. “Austin represents a future for us that’s built for hyperscale more than the general enterprise.”

The company has lined up incentives from Pflugerville Community Development Corporation that offer up to $1.5 million over 10 years to support job creation by tenants at the new data center.

The incentives will be paid once Skybox proves investment thresholds have been met, and passed through to tenants via rent credits or tenant improvement allowances. The Pflugerville city council approved the incentive package in a meeting Tuesday night.

Prime Data Centers is entering the Suburban Chicago market in a big way. The developer says it will invest $1 billion to create a three-building, 750,000 square foot data center campus in Elk Grove Village, the leading cloud hub in the Western Chicago suburbs near O’Hare Airport.

The project will be Prime’s first project outside of California, and is expected to support up to 150 megawatts of capacity, the company said.

“We are excited about the opportunity to enter the Midwest market in a big way,” said Jeff Barber, Prime’s EVP of Sales and Business Development. “These types of facilities are in high demand from some of the world’s largest companies. Partnering with Elk Grove Village to meet the demand for data center capacity is incredibly strategic to both Prime and the greater Chicago market in general.

“This is an exciting next step in our journey as we continue to expand to strategic data center locations across the United States and the world,” he added.

Prime’s expansion illustrates how investor interest in digital infrastructure is translating into large new data center projects, This week’s announcement follows a strategic equity investment from Macquarie Capital, the investment arm of global infrastructure fund Macquarie, which plans to commit significant capital to help Prime become a larger player in data center development. The partnership has targeted capital investments in excess of $5 billion over the next 10 years.

Prime is a privately held developer based in Sacramento, where it is developing a campus at McClellan Park with room for up to six data center buildings. The company recently announced an 8 megawatt build-to-suit lease with a publicly-traded global enterprise.

The Sacramento project is one of several California developments for Prime Data Centers, which was founded in 2019 and offers customers flexible ownership and leasing models for their projects, with options including sale-leasebacks or greenfield developments. The company also owns a fully-leased data center in Hayward, Calif. and is developing a 9 megawatt data center in Santa Clara in Silicon Valley.

Chicago is a major hub for Internet and financial infrastructure, with active communities of data center users and service providers. Many data center developers have expanded in the western suburbs surrounding O’Hare Airport, which has become a leading destination for hyperscale users.

Data center activity in Greater Chicago has surged since 2019, when the region’s competitive position got a boost as Illinois approved new tax incentives. That included a robust 71 megawatts for 2020, third-best in the U.S. after Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley, according to real estate sources.

Prime is the latest in a series of new market entrants in Suburban Chicago in recent months include Aligned, which is building a 60-megawatt facility in Northlake, and Skybox Data Centers , which is teaming with Prologis to develop a 30-megawatt data center in Elk Grove Village.

It was another record month for audience growth at Data Center Frontier, a sign of growing interest in digital infrastructure. The fire and related outages at OVH were the top story, while there was also strong interest in DCF’s industry-leading coverage of new edge data center design at Equinix, and Microsoft’s embrace of immersion cooling technology. Not to mention space lasers, a “logistics meets data” partnership, and a startup planning “data center cities.”

Here the 10 most popular stories on Data Center Frontier in March 2021, in order of article views:

• OVH Data Center in France Destroyed by Fire, All Staff Safe: Hosting company OVH says its staff are safe after a fire destroyed one data center and damaged another at the company’s campus in Strasbourg, France.
• Equinix Introduces Factory-Built Data Center Design for Edge Computing: Equinix has introduced a new data center design for edge computing, which uses factory-built modules to add capacity in smaller increments. The new design is being deployed for the first time in a new facility in Bordeaux, France.
• Microsoft Tests Immersion Cooling Tech from Bitcoin Mining for its Cloud Servers:Microsoft is test-driving immersion cooling technology used in bitcoin mining for adoption in its cloud. As powerful new AI hardware presents cooling challenges, Microsoft sees dunking its servers in coolant as a promising technology for future data centers.
• Space Lasers, Smart Antennas Are Key Enablers for Satellite Broadband: Lasers beaming data between satellites in space will be a key enabler of broadband networks using low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, along with smart antennas that can track satellites in the sky. Here’s a closer look at these two technologies.
• OVH to Shutter Second Strasbourg Data Center After Smoke Incident: Ten days after a fire destroyed its SBG2 data center in Strasbourg, French hosting company OVH says it will abandon efforts to restart the adjacent SBG1 data center.
• Logistics Meets Data: Skybox Teams With Prologis on Data Center Projects: Skybox Datacenters will partner with Prologis Inc. to develop data centers in Chicago and other major U.S. markets. The initiative highlights the growing intersection of logistics and digital infrastructure, which are both more important than ever.
• Digital Realty: Data Gravity Will Reshape the Interconnection Landscape: Digital Realty has outlined its vision for a more distributed interconnection landscape, with network connections moving closer to giant storehouses of data, rather than being concentrated in network hubs in city centers.
• Startup Quantum Loophole Plans Gigawatt-Scale ‘Data Center Cities’: Data center startup Quantum Loophole plans to develop gigawatt scale “data center cities.” CEO Josh Snowhorn leads an experienced team, and says the growth of hyperscale computing calls for new types of real estate solutions.
• DataBank Deal Expands Funding Options for Colocation, Edge Computing: A recent financing by DataBank breaks new ground in financing data center growth, and may help colocation and edge computing specialists raise capital using strategies previously limited to hyperscale deals.
• LiquidStack Seeks to Bring Immersion Cooling to Cloud Data Centers: Server immersion cooling technology from bitcoin specialist Bitfury is coming to the data center. LiquidStack launches today as a stand-alone company looking to address growing cooling challenges in cloud, HPC and edge computing.

Education is part of our mission at Data Center Frontier. In our Voices of the Industry feature, we share the experience of data center executives on the front lines of innovation. Here’s a look at the most popular Voices columns for DCF readers last month:

• Maximize Your Data Center Budget with High Speed Point-to-Point Cables (The Siemon Company): Ryan Harris, Sales and Market Manager for High Speed Interconnects with The Siemon Company, explores the ins and outs of a variety of different data center cabling options to suit a variety of different data center budgets, as well as when reaching out to a cabling specialist might be the best approach.
• Managing Energy Efficiency New Focus for 5G (Vertiv): Scott Armul, Global Vice President of DC Power at Vertiv explains the many challenges and opportunities that the transition to 5G represents for data center operators.
• Making Your Data Center Water Positive (Chemstar WATER): Cem Candir, CEO of Chemstar WATER, provides insights on new innovations in data center water treatment and gives details on how some hyperscalers are making their data centers water positive.

Skybox Datacenters will partner with logistics real estate specialist Prologis Inc to develop data centers in Chicago and other major US markets. The first project will be a 30 MW, 190,000 SF project in Elk Grove Village the leading data center hub in the Suburban Chicago market.

The announcement highlights the growing intersection of logistics and digital infrastructure, which are both more important than ever in supporting global business through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Logistics specialists like Prologis have extensive real estate holdings in proximity to population centers, which are also key data center destinations as cloud platforms and video services seek to bring content closer to eyeballs.

“Skybox is thrilled to work with a powerhouse like Prologis,” says Rob Morris, CEO of Skybox Datacenters. “Our partnership will bring together two very important roles: Skybox will provide leading data center development and leasing expertise while Prologis will bring substantial holdings.

“We are excited to see this partnership elevate data center sector standards with best-in-class real estate and data center collaboration in a booming market like Elk Grove,” said Morris.

Prologis is a global leader in logistics real estate, with 984 million square feet of advanced facilities and development projects in 19 countries, supporting 5,500 customers in business-to-business commerce and retail/online fulfillment. With access to hundreds of assets in Elk Grove Village alone, Skybox and Prologis can offer users the combination of immense scale and a roadmap for future growth.

Skybox Eyes Horizons Beyond Texas

Skybox Datacenters is based in Dallas and focuses on purpose-built facilities for the wholesale data center market, working with enterprise, hyperscale and colocation customers. Skybox Chicago I will be the company’s first project outside of Texas.

The Chicago data center market occupies a central place in America’s geography and mission-critical infrastructure. The Windy City is a major hub for Internet and financial infrastructure, with active communities of data center users and service providers.

Data center activity in Greater Chicago has surged since 2019, when the region’s competitive position got a boost as Illinois approved new tax incentives. That included a robust 49 megawatts of leasing in the fourth quarter of 2020, and 71 megawatts for the full year, third-best in the U.S. after Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley, according to real estate sources.

The 2019 state incentives provide exemptions from state and local sales taxes on data center equipment for 10 years if they meet investment and hiring targets. The Skybox project also has lined up a Class B property tax exemption from Cook County, which provides developers with incentives for property renovations.

The Skybox Chicago I project at 800 East Devon in Elk Grove Village will be developed as a powered shell project. It will be supported by 30 megawatts of power from the nearby Comed Itasca power substation, and have access to fiber routes that traverse Elk Grove Village, which abuts the infrastructure-rich O’Hare Airport. The neighborhood is home to data centers for Digital Realty, Equinix, EdgeConneX, STACK Infrastructure and Cyxtera.

In working with Prologis, Skybox is the latest data center operator to line up a partner that can help with capital or real estate, or both. On the real estate front, Switch is teaming with FedEx to create an edge computing network, while American Tower has also begun working with edge data center specialists. For companies with extensive real estate holdings, distributed networks of data centers offer an opportunity to monetize their holdings in new ways.

Meanwhile, global investors are raising billions of dollars to invest in digital infrastructure, citing extraordinary demand for capital to fuel the data economy. Investment interest in data centers has been boosted by the growth of hyperscale computing, where the tenant is a giant corporation with excellent credit, lowering the risk profile for investors.