Yahoo to Expand East Coast Data Center

LOCKPORT, NY-Yahoo will enlarge its existing East Coast data center here facility by 150,000 square feet under an expansion that broke ground here Friday. The world's largest user of integrated Internet services, Yahoo plans to spend $170 million on the expansion, for which it acquired 20 acres this past summer and which will add a 24-hour customer care center.

The expansion of the existing facility, which Yahoo regards as a showcase data center location, and the new customer call center will follow the same template of sustainability as the current complement of five data centers in Lockport. This includes the facility's full electricity needs being met by clean, renewable power from the New York Power Authority's Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant in Lewiston, NY, which will supply 7.2 megawatts to augment the 16 MW of hydropower that existing data centers currently receives.

The expansion project's sustainable design will facilitate the use of moderate to cold outside air for cooling the data center's servers, consistent with the current facility's features. The design is nicknamed a “chicken coop” format that maximizes the use of free cooling.

Yahoo's expanded campus is intended to use 40% less electricity and 95% less water compared to conventional data centers. Yahoo's East Coast data center is the company's second largest and most efficient worldwide.

Along with the economic development benefits from its Lockport expansion, including $2 million in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits from Empire State Development, Yahoo will contribute $500,000 per year to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, a not-for-profit organization. The funding will be used to advance specific priority economic development strategies identified by the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council.

 “Western New York's rapidly growing professional services sector is distinguished by several success stories, including Yahoo,” says Kenneth Adams, Empire State Development's president and CEO. “High-end back office operations and technology service centers, like Yahoo, are locating and expanding in the region, primarily because of the access to a high quality, educated workforce and the state's competitive incentives.”