Causes "major global outage"
A fire broke out on Thursday, May 22, at a data center in Hillsboro, Oregon, that is leased by Elon Musk's X social media firm, causing a major global outage.
As reported by Wired, firefighters arrived at the Hillsboro Technology Park at 10:21 am to deal with the outbreak.
According to the Wired report, the fire was related to a room of batteries. Hillsboro Fire and Rescue spokesperson Piseth Pich said that the fire had not spread to other parts of the building, but the room was full of smoke.
The following day, May 23, X suffered a major outage, with Downdetector.com showing nearly 6,000 users reported outages globally.
According to FirstPost, X's engineering account published a statement on its developer platform: "X is aware some of our users are experiencing performance issues on the platform today. We are experiencing a data center outage and the team is actively working to remediate the issue.”
According to Wired, X leases space in a data center building "linked" to Digital Realty.
In a written statement to local publication Oregon Live, Digital Realty said of the fire: "The incident is under control, and the fire department has concluded its on-site response. All personnel were safely evacuated, with no reported injuries.
“We continue to monitor the situation, prioritizing the safety of our personnel, the integrity of the facility, and minimizing customer impact.”
Digital Realty declined to say whether X leases space in the facility directly affected by the fire.
Before Elon Musk bought X, formerly known as Twitter, the company leased three data centers across Portland; Sacramento, California; and Atlanta, Georgia. The Atlanta facility is owned by QTS, while Prime owns the Sacramento site.
In late 2022, Musk shut down the Sacramento data center, moving as many as 2,573 server racks to data centers in Portland and Atlanta. Around that time, X suffered a seven-hour outage. Tesla later took over the lease at the site.
Digital Realty's Portland, Oregon, data centers have a total footprint of 56,500 sqm (609,000 sq ft) split between two data centers.
