Microsoft to invest $348m to expand its Virginia data center in Mecklenburg County

Microsoft is planning to invest $348m to grow its data center in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, which will see two more facilities added.

As local Indiana newspaper The Republic reports, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said that the expansion will help create thirty new jobs in the area, with The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission putting $2m towards the project. Also, the Governor’s Opportunity Fund will provide a $200,000 grant to assist the county in pushing the initiative forward.

The latest expansion adds to the $499m Microsoft already invested in the data center to build it initially back in 2010, with an additional $150m pumped in to expand the site in 2011.

Christian Belady, Microsoft Data Center Services general manager, added that the investment and expansion will increase the facility’s computing capacity, software capabilities and server utilization.

In April last year, we reported that Microsoft was investing $112m in a new Wyoming data centre, not long after it switched on two new data centers for its Azure cloud computing projects.

And earlier this month, Google said it was investing an extra $600 million to expand its own Berkeley County data center in South Carolina.

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