The site currently offers 1MW of capacity.
American Tower Corporation has opened its Edge data center in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The tower company marked the occasion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the site, the company's first data center in North Carolina’s Research Triangle region.
American Tower broke ground on the build in June of last year.
The Raleigh data center facility (RA1) is 4,000 sq ft (371 sqm) in size and will offer 1MW at first, but has the potential to offer 4MW across 16,000 sq ft (1,485 sqm) at full build-out.
RA1 will serve as the “middle mile” between cloud data centers and the Edge, and as a colocation and interconnection hub in Raleigh.
It's located at the base of an existing ATC cellular tower, stated the company.
American Tower added that on average, the facility offers 15 kilowatts of power per rack, providing a single rack with considerable power.
The company notes that its Edge data centers are able to address the requirements of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), hybrid cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
“We thought Raleigh was an interesting market, as we have a strong presence in North Carolina,” said Jake Rasweiler, SVP of innovation in the US tower division at American Tower, in an interview with DCD last year. “We selected that market because it's the capital of North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country."
ATC is set to launch more of these Edge data centers across the US.
"To continue the momentum established in Raleigh, we’ve identified more than 1,000 American Tower sites that can handle multiple megawatts of power and are technically feasible for future Edge data center development," said the company this week.
Primarily a tower firm, American Tower has a portfolio of around 226,000 wireless and broadcast towers, rooftops, and in-building systems globally.
CoreSite was acquired by American Tower in 2021, with the latter rolling several existing data centers into the acquired company. CoreSite has more than 27 data centers in operation or development across 11 US markets.
While CoreSite focuses on traditional data center markets, American Tower is also expanding its Edge data center footprint.
It operates several small Edge colocation sites - branded as Access Edge data centers - at existing tower locations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Jacksonville, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; and Denver and Boulder, Colorado.
