Skybox, Prologis Plan Massive 600-Megawatt Data Center Campus in Austin
Skybox Datacenters and Prologis plan to build a massive 600-megawatt campus near Austin, Texas which will offer up to 4 million square feet of data center space. The project will build additional momentum for data center development in Austin, which has become a magnet for tech companies.
The Skybox PowerCampus Austin will be located in Hutto, which is about 25 miles north of Downtown Austin, and is scheduled to begin delivering capacity in 2024. The project will be located just north of Skybox Austin I, a 30-megawatt (MW) data center facility in Pflugerville which will come online later this year.
The PowerCampus Austin development agreement was approved Thursday night by the Hutto City Council.
The scale of the project indicates that Skybox and Prologis see Austin as a destination for hyperscale data centers and cloud platforms. The site is adjacent to a 345 kV transmission corridor and will offer two private 300 megawatt (MW) dedicated substations, making it one of the most scalable data center campuses in the United States.
"PowerCampus Austin will be the start of a new era of hyperscale development," said Rob Morris, CEO of Skybox Datacenters. "This unique asset and location offer unprecedented access to power and a predictable road map for growth. We look forward to doing our part to enable the next generation of critical infrastructure in a thoughtful and sustainable manner.
"Skybox is excited to partner with Prologis on this new venture and build on our momentum in Central Texas," Morris added.
Prologis is a global leader in logistics real estate, with 1.2 billion square feet of facilities and development projects in 19 countries. Logistics specialists like Prologis have extensive real estate holdings in proximity to population centers, which are also key data center destinations as cloud platforms and video services seek to bring content closer to eyeballs.
The partnership - known as Skybox, Powered by Prologis – launched with a data center in Suburban Chicago.
"This 150-acre campus will contribute to the local economy and build upon North Austin’s growing reputation as a world-class location for digital infrastructure," said JC Witt, VP Investments at Prologis. "We’re delighted to be working with the City of Hutto and Skybox Datacenters on this state-of-the-art data center campus."
Witt said the project's super-sized power infrastructure will make the PowerCampus Austin "one of the most scalable data center campuses in the United States."
Austin: A Market on the Rise
There's been a data center building boom in Austin over the past several years. While not as large as the Dallas or Houston markets, Austin has been an active location for data center capacity, with a strong local provider in Data Foundry (now part of Switch) as well as facilities from larger platforms like Digital Realty, CyrusOne, Flexential and Element Critical.
The market has seen new projects announced in North Austin over the last three years:
- In 2021 Switch made a major push into Austin, acquiring Data Foundry and announcing plans for a 1.5 million square foot data center campus adjacent to the Dell campus in Round Rock.
- In March 2022, Prologis and Skybox said they are partnering on a new data center in Pflugerville, just across Route 45 from the Dell HQ.
- In April 2022, Sabey Data Centers unveiled plans for a 72-megawatt data center in Round Rock, where it is converting a former Sears property into a data campus.
Skybox Datacenters is based in Dallas and focuses on purpose-built facilities for the wholesale data center market, working with enterprise, hyperscale and colocation customers.
At the PowerCampus, Austin, Skybox and Prologis plan to build 6 to 8 buildings, offering data centers sized at 24, 48 or 72 megawatts. The 72-megawatt design calls for a three-story, 700,000 square foot building.
