DC BLOX completes Alabama data center expansion to accommodate HPC applications
Data center and fiber network solutions provider DC BLOX has completed the expansion of its Birmingham, Alabama data center facility. The expansion includes a new data center hall design aimed at meeting the increasing demand for High-Performance Compute (HPC) applications.
The company says that the new mixed-hall design optimizes the allocation of floor space and power between high-density and standard cabinets, allowing for flexible configurations tailored to specific regional needs across DC BLOX’s data centers.
This design reflects the company’s goal of delivering solutions to support local businesses, government entities, and academic institutions.
“This expansion underscores DC BLOX’s steadfast dedication to empowering the technology-based economy of Birmingham and beyond,” says Jeff Uphues, CEO of DC BLOX.
“Our innovative mixed-hall design and HPC capability are testaments to our commitment to respond to the specific needs of our customers in Birmingham. And our new HPC-enabled data hall can be added to the data centers in any of our markets, as demand requires.”
Additionally, the design facilitates the deployment of GPU clusters alongside traditional retail racks. The infrastructure can support up to 2.4MW of 3N/2 distributed redundant power, in line with the Tier III design standards. The data hall accommodates up to 240 standard retail cabinets and 36 HPC-capable cabinets, each capable of supporting up to 35kW of power.
The expansion addresses the growing demand for HPC applications driven by factors such as the availability of cost-effective systems based on commodity hardware and specialized processor accelerators like GPUs. Industries including government, universities, manufacturing, and bio-sciences rely on HPC technology, which often faces accessibility challenges due to insufficient data center infrastructure.
“The facility, operations, and staff enable us to design and deploy cutting edge cyberinfrastructure in support of the world-class research conducted at The University of Alabama at Birmingham,” says Ralph Zottola, AVP for UAB Research Computing.
“From tailoring custom colocation solutions to meet emergent needs during a crisis [COVID-19] to constructing a new data hall engineered and equipped with the infrastructure to deliver the denser power and cooling necessary for high performance computing, the DC BLOX team has proven to be a true partner to UAB Research Computing.”
DC BLOX’s Birmingham data center, which initially opened in July 2019, offers 13,000 square feet of office space and 18,000 square feet of data center space. With plans for further expansion and the potential for multiple hyperscale data centers, the campus aims to become a central hub for connectivity and compute infrastructure in Alabama.
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Article Topics
data center | DC Blox | GPU | HPC
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