Microsoft Reveals Details on Project Osmium, Largest Data Center in US

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Microsoft Reveals Details on Project Osmium, Largest Data Center in US

By CircleID Reporter
July 23, 2016, 6:32 pm PDT Views: 9,505 Add Comment

A press conference in West Des Moines, Iowa, revealed Microsoft has chosen the city to build an estimated 1.7 million square feet data center, dubbed Project Osmium, spanning two counties (160 acres in Warren County and 40 acres in Madison County). The total capital investment made by Microsoft for the data center is expected to be between $1.5 and $2 billion. “Project Osmium will be the largest data center deployment Microsoft has ever built in the United States,” said Mayor Gaer Thursday.

— West Des Moines has been a data center location for Microsoft since 2008 beginning with Project Mountain, company’s first data center in Iowa, to address increased demand for its cloud services. Project Osmium will bring the company’s total investment in West Des Moines to nearly $3.5 billion.

— Microsoft is expected to pay more than 12 million dollars in property taxes once the data center is completed. “These data centers pay so much in property taxes this is a huge boost to the school districts, a hug boost to the counties and the cities, because they really don’t use a lot of city services,” Gaer says. “They use a lot of water—but other than that—they don’t use a lot of city services.”

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

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