American Tower's New Edge Data Centre in Raleigh: Explained
American Tower has opened its first edge data centre in North Carolina's Research Triangle region, marking a significant expansion of the company's distributed computing capabilities.
Its new facility in Raleigh represents a clear effort by the telecommunications infrastructure company to integrate its cellular tower portfolio with the data centre services it gained through its acquisition of CoreSite.
The new facility sits at the base of an existing American Tower cellular site, creating what the company describes as a hybrid infrastructure model. This approach ultimately allows the company to address growing demand for low-latency computing services.
“The Raleigh data centre is located at the base of our existing cellular tower, enabling us to support wireless and wireline network use cases and customers,” the company said via its press release.
Integrating cellular and data centre operations
Through the CoreSite acquisition, American Tower gained more than two decades of colocation data centre experience and a network of interconnected facilities across the United States.
Leveraging American Tower’s portfolio of more than 149,000 communications sites around the world, the Raleigh data centre focuses on organisations deploying AI, hybrid cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) at scale.
These applications require data processing closer to end users to reduce latency and improve performance. Companies running AI models from Raleigh offices will be able to access computing resources without the delays associated with data centres that are located further away.
According to American Tower, the Research Triangle region provides a target market of technology companies, life sciences organisations and academic institutions. Raleigh ranks among leading technology cities in the US, which inevitably creates demand for edge computing infrastructure that can support data-intensive applications.
“The Raleigh data centre provides mobile network operators, cloud service providers and content delivery networks the ability to extend services into a new market through advanced connectivity,” the company explains.
Key features of this new data centre
The 4,000 square-foot Raleigh facility currently generates one megawatt of power, with capacity to scale to multiple megawatts at full build-out. Each rack provides an average of 15 kilowatts of power, which offers customers significant computing capacity within individual cabinets.
Some of the main features of the Raleigh facility include:
Performance and Scalability:
American Tower states that it provides the Raleigh area with digital infrastructure to address low-latency requirements for a range of applications and use cases. With the new 4,000 square-foot data centre, it hopes to scale rapidly to deliver multiple megawatts of power at full capacity.
The facility, on average, offers 15 kilowatts of power per rack, providing a single rack with considerable power.
Efficiency:
Using CoreSite’s Open Cloud Exchange (OCX), the company is hoping to streamline connectivity and simplify hybrid cloud and site-to-site interconnection management.
It also provides access to CoreSite’s Any2Exchange, which is the second-largest internet exchange in the US. Here, customers can gain expanded capabilities to manage their bandwidth and control costs using American Tower’s dedicated internet service, Blended IP.
Reliability:
The company is providing multiple points of redundancy to maintain uptime.
- Concurrently maintainable A/B power design
- Additional generators, Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS),and switching equipment ready to go if one of these products goes offline (N+1)
- Multiple fibre connections 24/7/365 customer support
- Multilayer security
Continuing to build at the edge
The Raleigh opening establishes a template for American Tower's broader edge data centre strategy.
Already, the company has identified more than 1,000 tower sites across its portfolio that can support multiple megawatts of power and meet technical requirements for data centre development.
Not all identified sites will become data centres, the company says, but the portfolio provides American Tower with options for future edge infrastructure deployment.
Site selection will depend on market demand and customer requirements in specific geographic regions.
The AI boom is ultimately fuelling the edge data centre market, with companies hoping to power a large volume of growth. American Tower’s approach combines existing tower infrastructure with data centre capabilities, reducing the time and cost required to deploy edge computing facilities.
Now, American Tower will be able to leverage existing power, cooling and connectivity infrastructure at tower sites while adding the specialised equipment required for data centre operations.
It also aims to create opportunities for the company to better serve mobile network operators deploying 5G Infrastructure alongside its edge computing capabilities. These operators often require data centres positioned close to cell towers.
The company adds: “The Raleigh data centre capabilities underscore our focus on providing customers with reliable infrastructure and connectivity, along with the flexibility and scalability to grow and capitalise on new opportunities.”
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