Data Center 101: What is a data center?
Data centers are mission-critical infrastructure.
They enable our digital world to function and grow, supporting everything from Artificial Intelligence (AI), streaming movies, video calls, and hospital records to running cloud services, online education, e-commerce, social media, and national defense. Without them, our connected society wouldn’t be possible.
Nearly every digital experience we rely on is powered by a data center. These facilities serve as the backbone of the digital infrastructure.
A data center is a physical facility that businesses and organizations use to store, process, and manage their digital information and critical applications.
When people say their data is “in the cloud,” it’s actually stored and processed in data centers, which are highly secure, purpose-built spaces filled with advanced computing equipment.
Data centers are just one piece of the broader digital infrastructure that powers the internet, online services, and other digital functions. This infrastructure also includes networks (like fiber and switches), hardware (such as servers and computers), software (from operating systems to applications), subsea cables, and the skilled personnel who build, manage, and maintain it all.
How big are data centers?
Data centers vary widely in size, ranging from small rooms with a few server racks and smaller edge data centers that are closer to the end-users. There also are sprawling campuses that span hundreds of acres and could have multiple buildings with hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of square feet.
Data centers are typically measured by the amount of electricity they consume, typically in megawatts (MW), which reflects the power needed to operate servers, cooling systems, and critical infrastructure around the clock.
Data centers are typically measured by the amount of electricity they consume per hour, rather than by building square footage. A single large data center can use 30 to 100 megawatts or more, enough to power tens of thousands of homes.
Four types of data centers
Data centers come in four main types — each designed to meet different operational, scale, and location needs
Collocation: Multitenant facilities owned/leased by a data center provider serving many organizations and businesses. Wholesale data centers are a type of colocation facility where a third-party developer leases large blocks of space and power to a single company.
Hyperscale: Large facilities designed to scale massively, typically serving one or two businesses. Hyperscale data centers are built typically for a major tech company like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, or Meta. These centers are designed to meet that company's specific data and infrastructure demands.
On-Premise: Smaller, private facilities serving a single business
Edge: Small, decentralized computing facilities located close to the network edge, where data is generated and consumed
