Las Vegas Switch data center expanding its core campus

The largest data center company in Las Vegas is about to get bigger.

On Monday, Switch celebrated a land addition that would allow it to double its Las Vegas data center space with a groundbreaking ceremony with Gov. Steve Sisolak and Switch Founder and CEO Rob Roy.

“Las Vegas is Switch’s home, the place where we started, so to have the ability to continue to grow, continue to support our community and continue to support our customers with this expansion is something we’re extremely excited about,” said Switch spokesman Adam Kramer.

Land expansion

The additional land would add up to 115 megawatts of capacity, and would allow the company’s core campus to grow up to 4.6 million square feet.

Switch’s expansion “will allow our customers to continue to grow with us,” Kramer said.

Dan Thompson, senior analyst at 451 Research, said the square footage addition is larger than some entire markets in the country.

“In Vegas, they are extremely successful,” he said. “They are by far the most dominant player.”

Industry growth

In terms of operational square feet, Las Vegas is ranked ninth in the country, with one operator — Switch — owning 90 percent of the city’s market, according to Thompson.

“The have found a particular niche in poaching companies from the West Coast, where data center prices are outrageous, land prices are outrageous,” he said. “Companies that don’t have to have their infrastructure on the West Coast are choosing Las Vegas and Phoenix as alternatives.”

The data center industry as a whole has experienced growth in recent years, much of which is driven by increasing interest in cloud services. According to a 2018 report from CBRE, global data center and cloud IP traffic are expected to triple between 2016 and 2021, with an annual growth rate of 25 percent.

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.