U.Va. eyes $72M replacement data center

The University of Virginia‘s data center is nearing its maximum capacity. So, school leaders think it’s time to build a new one, estimated to cost $72 million, to aid faculty and researchers in their work.

“We can already see that our researchers are experiencing significant delays in their ability to access the computational resources,” Kelly Doney, a vice president and chief information officer at the University of Virginia, told the members of the U.Va. Board of Visitors‘ finance committee at a March 7 meeting. “This is a big factor in terms of faculty recruiting and retention, and we want to be competitive with other schools when we’re looking for those top-notch faculty to bring here to UVA.”

Doney believes the university’s current data center will be able to hang on until 2029. To have another data center ready by that time, Mr. Jefferson’s University will need to begin construction on a new facility next year.

The school’s current data center, according to the March presentation, cannot be expanded due to its physical location as well as cooling and power limitations. A request for details about the current U.Va data center and the planned project was not returned Friday by university officials.

Initially, the new university data center will have a 4-megawatt capacity, but it will be able to expand to 15 megawatts.

The identified site for the new facility is at Fontaine Research Park, off U.Va. grounds, about two miles southwest of the university’s historic Lawn.

“It is conveniently located adjacent to the Fontaine Energy Plant, which is fantastic for us, because that really enables some great efficiencies through geothermal heating and cooling, and we’re able to share back the excess heat generated through that data center for other needs on grounds,” Doney explained.

The Fontaine Energy Plant is slated to open in 2026, according to news reports.

University officials analyzed three options for meeting the campus’ computing needs, according to the presentation. U.Va. could operate its own equipment in a data center owned by someone else. The university could also purchase time on major cloud providers. The research showed that the university building its own own data center would be most cost effective.

Josh Baller, associate vice president for research computing at U.Va., said that while artificial intelligence applications are currently increasing demand for power and computing capacity, the data center will help the university grow into other future usages as well, even if AI tools become more efficient in power usage. “It really just opens up the potential for more research that our faculty could be engaged in, rather than negating the need for this,” he said.

The goal at the March presentation was to provide the finance committee with an overview of the project. When the committee reconvenes in June, it may make a decision about whether or not to move forward with the project.