Developed by T5 Data Centers, the data centre is one of the company’s legacy buildings dating back to 2008. Its legacy status means that the company can take the shell building, originally designed for small colocation deployment, and create an AI-ready environment.

In order to deliver additional power to the data centre campus to support AI demand, T5 Data Centers partnered with Duke Power. This is to turn the data centre asset into what Robbie Sovie, executive vice president of development at T5 Data Centers, called “an AI scale solution with liquid-to-chip cooling to support a 1,000w/sf solution”.

He added: “Duke Power was able to support T5 with ample power for growth. The T5 @ Charlotte Park has been a successful data centre campus with numerous built to suit solutions delivered to Fortune 25 companies.”

The strategic importance of Charlotte

North Carolina is becoming a more important data centre market. In particular, the city of Charlotte has slowly been emerging as a well-known technology hub for several years, having become a desirable location for technology companies, entrepreneurs and IT professionals.

Likewise, renewable energy options and tax incentives have enticed the data centre industry. T5 Data Centers selected Charlotte for its data centre for a broad range of reasons, having strongly established a presence in the region.

“Most notably, hyperscale customers [have been] building data centres within a 50-mile radius of T5’s Kings Mountain campus,” Sovie explained.

Having been in Charlotte for nearly twenty years, T5 Data Centers is has built significant partnerships to support local communities close to T5 @ Charlotte II.

“Our community support includes providing backpacks and school supplies for elementary school kids,” Sovie said. “During the holidays, we also get involved with the KMPD Christmas bike drive, donating bicycles annually. We have also provided school gym equipment and iPads to the high school students.”

Transforming legacy into opportunity

All of T5 Data Centers’ data centre projects are purpose-built facilities that feature robust design, redundant and reliable power and telecommunications, in addition to 24-hour staff to support mission-critical computing applications.

Some key facts about T5 @ Charlotte II:

• Power densities support up to 50kW per rack
• Configured with N+1 redundancy
• Dual 100kV transmission lines
• On-site Duke Energy 180MVA multi-transformer substation
• Concrete-encased duct bank throughout the park
• Low $0.048/kWh power cost
• Air and liquid cooling systems for optimal performance

As AI demand continues to surge, the need for scalable and efficient infrastructure is only continuing to grow. Liquid cooling therefore is continually touted as a more sustainable solution for the data centre industry to confront the power and cooling challenges of AI, enabling companies to support more powerful AI hardware while maintaining energy efficiency.

At T5 at Charlotte II, the company’s design includes high efficiency closed loop chillers that require zero water usage to cool high-density loads.

“The cooling design includes liquid-to-chip cooling solutions to support high-density loads of 1,000w/sf+,” Sovie said. “Our annualised power usage effectiveness (PUE) is in the low 1.2 range.”

Notably, the campus’ unique offering is its ability to design for the AI boom within a legacy data centre.

“Our ability to design for the AI revolution has been proven with our T5 @ Charlotte campus,” he said. “We’ve been able to take lessons learned from this deployment and apply them to our 1GW+ solution for the AI world to come.”

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