New Microsoft Azure Data Centers Planned For Arizona

‘As part of our plans to support the growing demand for cloud and internet services in Arizona and across the western United States, Microsoft recently purchased land at two locations in Goodyear, Arizona, where we intend to develop world-class data center facilities,’ a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Microsoft plans to expand its western U.S. cloud infrastructure with two new Azure data center facilities on two parcels of land that it recently purchased in Arizona.

The parcels are located about 10 miles apart in Goodyear, Arizona, in the metro Phoenix area.

“As part of our plans to support the growing demand for cloud and internet services in Arizona and across the western United States, Microsoft recently purchased land at two locations in Goodyear, Arizona, where we intend to develop world-class data center facilities,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “Although early in our development process, we're making the commitment to pursue LEED Gold certification for the facilities we develop in Arizona.”

Microsoft would not disclose the timetable for the data centers’ openings or the number of availability zones planned for each.

The cloud platform provider currently has 46 data center regions, including two recently announced Azure Government Secret data centers in undisclosed locations, and it has announced plans for eight more. It currently has Western U.S. data center regions in California, Washington and Wyoming.

Arizona’s Goodyear City Council in February approved a development agreement for the expedited construction of the first two of five planned Microsoft Azure data center buildings on the 279-acre property near Phoenix Goodyear Airport that Microsoft purchased last year for approximately $48 million, according to The Arizona Republic newspaper. The agreement stipulates that each of the five buildings will require no more than 1 million gallons of water per day, and that a maximum amount of 5 million gallons of water can be delivered to the site.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company’s data center designs are “more energy- and water-efficient than traditional enterprise data centers and certifying the facilities under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED volume program will help conserve additional resources including energy and water, generate less waste, and support human health.”

Microsoft paid another $37 million last week for the second Goodyear parcel, which comprises 147 more acres, according to The Arizona Republic.

Goodyear looks to become a hub for data centers.

Dallas-based Stream Data Centers in February also announced it acquired a 418,000-square-foot facility on 157 acres in Goodyear with plans to develop a data center campus for hyper-scale and enterprise customers that will contain approximately 50 megawatts of critical load at full build-out.

“The Phoenix market has quickly emerged as one of the top destinations in the Western U.S. for enterprise and cloud companies,” Robert Kennedy, co-managing partner of Stream Data Centers, said in a statement at the time. “A pro-business environment with a great sales tax-incentive program, low risk of natural disaster and low latency to major markets on the West Coast, Midwest and Texas have fueled tremendous growth for this market.”

And Vantage Data Centers, based in Santa Clara, Calif., in January said it acquired 50 acres of land in Goodyear to build its largest database campus to date at more than 1 million square feet with 160 megawatts of critical load.