Cobalt Plans Las Vegas Data Center Project

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An artist's rendering of the planned Cobalt Data Centers project in Las Vegas.

There's a new player in the Las Vegas data center market. Cobalt Data Centers launched in July and has acquired 2.4 acres in Las Vegas and plans invest $60 million to build a colocation center on the property. The Cobalt Sahara Data Center will be a 60,000 square foot facility on East Sahara Road, the company said.

"Cobalt has assembled one of the finest data center parcels in the western U.S. because of its fiber connectivity," said Mike Ballard, CEO of Cobalt Data Centers. "Coupled with the next generation technology we will incorporate into the project, Cobalt Sahara will be the most advanced and energy efficient colocation and cloud computing facility in Nevada. This project will bring important jobs and technology opportunities to Las Vegas."

Ballard says he expects the project to create more than 75 construction jobs and more than 30 permanent technology jobs.

10 Megawatts of Power

Cobalt says the property is located in an area of Las Vegas known as Telco Row for its access to long haul carrier fiber, with 15 carriers at the curb of the property. The facility will have at least 10 megawatts of grid power, and the company anticipates gaining silver certification under the LEED standard for energy efficient buildings.

Ballard is entrepreneur who most recently served as CEO of 1Velocity, a provider of metro Ethernet services to business and governments in Las Vegas and Reno, which was sold in May to Towerstream. He previously served as CFO for Switch Communications, the largest colocation provider in the Las Vegas market, which operates the 400,000 square foot SuperNAP. Ballard left the company in 2006.