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Salt Lake City – A Great Location for Data Centers
Salt Lake City may have just what you’re looking for if you’re in the market for data center services. Data centers in Salt Lake City benefit from electricity prices up to 25% below the national average, a highly skilled workforce, ample land, and a favorable tax environment
These advantages are the reason that “Silicon Slopes” is rapidly becoming a Tier 1 data center market.
Advantages of Salt Lake City Colocation
There are many advantages to colocation in Salt Lake City. Let’s explore some of the most important benefits here.
Salt Lake City Has Cheap Power
Power is one of the most significant cost drivers for colocation services. Data centers in Utah enjoy extremely low electricity costs. Energy pricing will remain low due to an influx of renewable energy providers offering solar and wind energy.
Utah ranks second in the nation for states with the cheapest electricity rates at $8.99 per kWh, trailing only Idaho. Salt Lake City has also made immense progress in the renewable energy sector over the years, with Utah’s legislature committed to emphasizing renewable energies by 2032. Salt Lake City data center customers can help meet corporate sustainability goals while enjoying some of the nation’s most beautiful natural landscapes.
Utah’s climate is also a huge plus for customers looking at data centers in Salt Lake City. Thanks to Utah’s dry air and cold temperatures, data centers can cool down using ambient cooling techniques, significantly reducing operational costs. Ambient cooling uses the outside air to cool the data center, rather than air conditioning units. This leads to a meaningful reduction in power costs.
With these price advantages, the data center industry is transforming Utah into one of America’s premier tech hubs.
Salt Lake City Still Has Affordable Real Estate
Along with power, the cost of real estate is the second most significant driver of colocation costs. The expansive open space makes Utah great for data centers looking to expand capacity.
While property prices have increased in recent years, especially in and around Salt Lake City, Utah still offers the 13th lowest land prices in the nation at an average of $4,664 per acre. Affordable land means data center providers can offer you more competitive colocation rates.
Utah Offers Favorable Data Center Tax Incentives
Utah is one of the most business-friendly states in the U.S. Its corporate tax rate of 5% makes it one of the eight states with the lowest corporate tax rates. It also boasts a personal income tax of only 4.95%.
Utah is also leaning into its burgeoning reputation as “Silicon Slopes,” with incentives aimed at attracting data centers. Utah data center customers, owners, and operators are exempt from sales tax on data center equipment purchases with an economic life of at least one year.
Given the extremely high cost of data center hardware, this is a potentially massive saving for customers colocating in Utah. By comparison, the neighboring state of California has sales tax rates of 7.25% or more.
Salt Lake City Has Great Internet Connectivity
Salt Lake City offers something precious to data center tenants: the ability to access superior connectivity. The robust fiber infrastructure, interconnectivity, and bandwidth allow tenants to optimize their data centers’ speed, performance, and latency. With over 103 connectivity providers and growing, Salt Lake City is rapidly becoming a major internet connectivity hub for the Western United States. Salt Lake City is also centrally located between other major markets like Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego, allowing low-latency connectivity to some of the largest markets in the United States.
Additionally, Salt Lake City now offers three availability zones for Google Cloud. GCP customers will enjoy easy access to the cloud and low latency by colocating in Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City Has A Highly Educated Workforce
Salt Lake City has seen tremendous growth in recent years due to the availability of a highly educated workforce. Companies enjoy the city’s excellent educational facilities, which have produced graduates with advanced engineering, computing, and technology skills. With these talented individuals ready and available for work, innovative companies from across the country have relocated their data centers to Salt Lake City.
The influx of businesses and knowledge workers has positively affected the economy, resulting in increased wages for residents and more job opportunities for those who live there. As a result, you will have no problem finding engineering staff to service your data center in Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City Has Minimal Risks of Natural Disasters
With its geography and climate, Salt Lake City has far less risk of natural disasters than many other cities. Located in the Intermountain West and far from the coast, there is no risk of a hurricane. The higher elevation of the region discourages tornados. FEMA’s National Risk Index rated Salt Lake City as one of the safest metropolitan areas in the United States for natural disasters.
Salt Lake City’s geographic advantages decrease the chances of damage or outage at your colocation facility. This leads to increased uptime for your business, not to mention better peace of mind.
The Salt Lake City Area Has Many Data Center Facilities to Choose From
The Salt Lake City area is home to sixteen colocation facilities. Flexential is a leading provider in the area colocation from five data center facilities in the area (Downtown, Fair Park, Millcreek, and South Valley). Together, these sites comprise 143,000 square feet of data center space. Flexential also offers hybrid IT services and cloud hosting in Salt Lake City from their downtown data center.
Databank is another leading provider in the area. Their downtown Salt Lake City data center is called SLC1. It features 11,000 square feet of raised floor data center space and 0.5 MW of critical IT load. It is serviced by 11 onsite carriers.
Databank also operates five other data centers from the Bluffdale, UT site at the Granite Point Campus. Granite Point has a substation with multiple redundant transformers and an N+1 power configuration. It also offers redundant power via diverse A/B power feeds from Rocky Mountain Power. These sites, called SLC2 – SLC6, comprise another 268,000 square feet of data center space, and 44 MW of critical IT power load.
XMission also offers some affordable colocation options from their downtown Salt Lake City data center. Their SOC2-certified site offers full, half, and quarter cabinets. Their easy-start colocation service option starts as low as $75 per month, including 100Mbps of bandwidth and a 100% uptime SLA.
Outside of SLC, seven other data centers provide retail and wholesale colocation services in Utah. These are located in Orem, Ogden, and Saint George.
Conclusion – Silicon Slopes is a Great Place for Data Centers
Salt Lake City offer considerable advantages for data centers. Low-cost power and real estate, coupled with favorable tax incentives, provide a strong value proposition for colocation in Utah. A low incidence of natural disasters and a highly educated workforce offer additional advantages. These advantages mean that Salt Lake City data centers should be on your shortlist for consideration for your next colocation expansion.
Utah Colocation – Brightlio Can Help!
If you are interested in exploring Utah enterprise colocation services, Brightlio would love to help. As a colocation broker, we offer competitive colocation pricing from our industry-leading network of partners.
Our services are free to you. The data center provider pays us a commission if you choose one of our recommended colocation services. The commission does not impact your cost.
We are also vendor-neutral. We have a network of vetted, global providers. We’ll give you our honest, expert opinion on each option so that you can make the best decision for your business. We believe in building long-lasting relationships through years of mutually shared success with our customers.
We are also experts in network connectivity and cloud solutions, allowing us to offer you a complete solution for your data center needs.
If you are interested in Salt Lake City, Utah colocation or exploring colocation in other markets, get started with Brightlio today!
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