Located at the junction of many national fiber networks and at a convenient national midpoint for low-latency deployments, Denver has long been home to a dense ecosystem of data center knowledge. While the city has yet to scale to the extent of some of the other rapidly developing cities across the western United States, Denver offers a low risk of natural disasters, reasonably priced power (with an increasing mix of renewables) and available land for development.
While coastal areas of the United States often must contend with earthquake or hurricane risk, Denver has limited exposure to these or the tornados that often cause disturbances across other central states. Combined with all data centers in-market constructed outside local floodplains, the city provides an excellent location for major deployments and disaster recovery facilities. As local tourist boards are often fond of quoting, Denver (allegedly) offers 300 days of sunshine annually, and the local energy mix has started to reflect this. Key local utility Xcel Energy aims to increase the amount of solar (to 1.6 GW) and wind (to 2.4 GW) power and retire coal-fired plants, part of an overarching goal to provide 80% of Colorado’s power via renewables by 2030. This will enable more local data centers to be powered directly from renewable sources rather than forcing the acquisition of offsets as in other markets.
Dense fiber surrounds and runs through Denver, both downtown and the Denver Tech Center neighborhood, immediately to the south, alongside tech-enabled suburbs such as Englewood and Greenwood Village. A swathe of high-tech and 
communications firms have long since called the area home, with the comfortable area lifestyle consistently driving population growth of high-skilled workers.
Major cloud services have all entered the Denver area, with initial edge deployments providing local onramps and the ability to scale further as required. Although incentives have yet to be granted at the state level for data center construction, continued collaboration with the data center industry has led local government to at least ponder the idea. However, a permanent roadmap has yet to be planned.
As Denver continues to grow in clientele and renewables, the city will offer a compelling data center location with quick access to other western U.S. and national locations. With a highly knowledgeable local ecosystem and capacity available, we expect Denver to gain more interest in the coming years.
The EdgeConneX campus in Denver offers a secure, carrier-neutral environment for all deployments, with excellent access to the downtown core and beyond.
- Tier III design
- 21+ MW shell available for occupancy
- Densities available of 20 kW per cabinet
- Eleven networks on-site
- Tethering available to local carrier hotel
To learn more, download the EdgeConneX Denver data sheet HERE.
Schedule a virtual tour: https://edge.1.aordev.com/virtual-tours/
For more information or to tour our Denver campus, please contact: capacity@edgeconnex.com