As demand for generative AI, machine learning, and streaming grows, large data facilities have scaled fast. This list tracks the eleven largest data centers in 2025 by active footprint and operational scale. These campuses range from China Telecom complexes to the Switch Citadel hub in Nevada. Each campus anchors regional cloud services and supports huge compute loads.
How Data Centers Work
Storage Layers: Hard drives and solid-state drives sit in rows of racks. They hold exabytes of user information. Automated software duplicates this data across multiple drives to prevent loss.
Compute Hardware: Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) process requests. These chips execute code for websites, artificial intelligence models, and financial algorithms.
Cooling: Servers generate intense heat. Cooling systems use outside air, chilled water, or liquid immersion to keep hardware at safe operating temperatures.
Networking: Fiber optic cables connect servers to the global internet. Redundant pathways ensure data flows even if one line fails.
Grid Supply: Massive substations feed electricity to the facility. Backup diesel or natural gas generators stand ready to take over during grid outages.
Did You Know?
ENIAC’s 1946 installation is often cited as an early precursor to the modern data center. The machine filled about 1,800 square feet and drew roughly 150 kilowatts to run calculations that a pocket calculator handles in milliseconds.
- 1. China Telecom Inner Mongolia Information Park
- 2. China Mobile Hohhot Data Center
- 3. The Citadel Campus
- 4. China Mobile Harbin Data Center
- 5. Range International Information Group
- 6. Meta Prineville Campus
- 7. Switch SUPERNAP Las Vegas
- 8. Google Council Bluffs
- 9. Vantage CWL1
- 10. Utah Data Center
- 11. Microsoft Azure
- Tips for Choosing the Best Data Center
- Frequently Asked Questions
1. China Telecom Inner Mongolia Information Park
The China Telecom Inner Mongolia Information Park stands as the largest data center globally by physical footprint. Located in Hohhot, this facility sprawls across a massive grid designed to support China's exploding demand for cloud computing and telecommunications. The site operates under the direct management of China Telecom, a state-owned enterprise. Planners selected this specific location for its abundance of land and distinct climate advantages. The cool ambient air in Inner Mongolia allows the operator to reduce reliance on mechanical refrigeration for several months of the year.
China Telecom established this park to serve as a central hub for national data traffic. It functions as a primary node for the "Eastern Data, Western Computing" initiative, a government project to move data processing loads away from congested eastern cities. The facility houses separate zones for cloud computing, call centers, and warehouse-style server halls. Growth has occurred in distinct phases, with new buildings coming online regularly since the initial groundbreaking in 2013. The modular design allows the operator to construct additional capacity without disrupting active services.
Power reliability is a critical feature of the Information Park. Two separate electrical substations feed the campus to ensure redundancy. The grid supply comes largely from local coal and wind power sources common in the region. While exact revenue figures for this specific facility are not public, China Telecom reported total operating revenues exceeding $65 billion in recent annual reports. This revenue stream supports the immense capital expenditure required to maintain the site.
Sustainability efforts here focus on air-side economization. The facility uses filtered outside air to cool servers when the temperature drops below a certain threshold. This method significantly lowers the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio compared to data centers in humid or tropical climates. The park exerts a massive regional impact, employing thousands of technicians and support staff in Hohhot. It serves as a digital anchor for the local economy, attracting related technology firms to the surrounding industrial zone.
2. China Mobile Hohhot Data Center
China Mobile operates its own colossal facility in the same industrial region as its competitor, China Telecom. The China Mobile Hohhot Data Center covers approximately 7.7 million square feet. This facility focuses heavily on 5G network traffic and enterprise cloud services. As the world's largest mobile network operator by subscriber count, China Mobile required a centralized hub to manage the data generated by nearly a billion users. The campus consists of multiple standardized server buildings arranged in a secure, fenced compound.
The growth of this facility mirrors the adoption of mobile internet in China. Construction began in the early 2010s and continues today as demand for data storage increases. The purpose of the site extends beyond simple storage; it handles complex routing for international and domestic traffic. Engineers designed the layout to maximize density, fitting more servers into each rack than standard commercial data centers. This high-density approach requires robust floor loading capabilities and advanced thermal management.
Power supply to the China Mobile campus is delivered through dedicated high-voltage lines. The facility utilizes a redundant N+1 power architecture, ensuring that backup systems are always available if a primary circuit fails. Cooling relies on a mix of water-cooled centrifugal chillers and free air cooling during winter months. The operator actively experiments with liquid cooling solutions for high-performance computing clusters housed within the park.
China Mobile serves both government and private sector clients from this location. The facility's impact on the global telecommunications market is substantial, as it routes a significant portion of cross-border traffic for the Asian market. Revenue for the parent company, China Mobile Limited, consistently ranks among the highest in the telecommunications sector globally. The Hohhot center represents a multi-billion dollar investment in fixed infrastructure.
3. Switch Citadel Campus
The Citadel Campus, operated by Switch, represents the largest data center project in the Western Hemisphere. Located near Reno, Nevada, this facility boasts a design capacity of 7.2 million square feet. Rob Roy, the founder of Switch, designed the campus to serve as a fortress for digital assets. The site sits within the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, neighbored by other industrial giants like Tesla's Gigafactory. Switch positions this facility as a central hub for North American internet redundancy.
Switch opened the first sector of The Citadel in 2017. The campus grows based on tenant demand, with large modular sectors added sequentially. The unique "exascale" design philosophy focuses on modularity and resilience. Each building connects to a proprietary fiber network called the "Superloop," which links the Reno campus to the company's Las Vegas headquarters and Los Angeles and San Francisco. This connectivity allows clients to operate active-active replication across multiple geographic zones with extremely low latency.
The facility runs on 100% renewable energy. Switch secured contracts for solar and wind power to feed the massive 650-megawatt capacity of the site. This commitment to green energy makes The Citadel one of the most sustainable large-scale data centers in existence. The cooling system utilizes Switch's patented TSC 500 roofing system and thermal storage units, which maintain stable temperatures without the water waste associated with traditional evaporative cooling towers.
The Citadel serves hundreds of clients, including major cloud providers, retailers, and government agencies. Switch, formerly a public company, was acquired by DigitalBridge and IFM Investors in a transaction valued at roughly $11 billion. The campus features military-grade security, including a 20-foot concrete wall and 24/7 armed guards. It stands as a testament to the scale of American digital infrastructure investment.
4. China Mobile Harbin Data Center
Located in the Heilongjiang province of China, the Harbin Data Center is another massive facility operated by China Mobile. It covers approximately 7.1 million square feet (over 660,000 square meters). The location in Harbin is strategic due to the extremely cold climate. The average annual temperature in Harbin is significantly lower than in most industrial hubs, allowing for natural cooling of the servers for the majority of the year.
This facility forms the northern anchor of China Mobile's computing network. It began operations in the late 2010s and has scaled rapidly. The campus serves as a primary repository for government data, telecommunications records, and cloud services for the northeastern region of China. The architecture consists of multiple multi-story data halls connected by a central command and control infrastructure. The scale of the project underscores the operator's strategy to decentralize its storage footprint.
Powering such a facility requires a dedicated connection to the provincial grid. The center consumes hundreds of megawatts at peak load. To manage this, China Mobile integrated advanced power management systems that monitor usage down to the rack level. The cooling strategy takes full advantage of the Ice City environment. Air handlers mix frigid outside air with the warm return air from servers to maintain optimal conditions without running energy-intensive compressors.
The Harbin center is a key component of the local technology ecosystem. It supports the development of big data industries in Heilongjiang. While the parent company generates massive revenue, this specific facility operates as a cost center and infrastructure asset. Its achievement lies in its efficiency; despite its size, it maintains a low carbon footprint relative to its computing output due to the climate-specific design.
5. Range International Information Group
The Range International Information Group operates a massive technology park in Langfang, China. Often cited in rankings with a footprint of 6.3 million square feet, this facility functions slightly differently than a single-tenant data center. It serves as an IT hub that hosts data center infrastructure for various enterprises and government bodies. The sheer scale of the constructed area places it firmly among the largest technology real estate projects in the world.
Founded by Zhou Chaonan, the Range group built this facility to capitalize on the proximity to Beijing. Langfang serves as a satellite city to the capital, providing necessary infrastructure without the space constraints of downtown Beijing. The project broke ground in the late 2000s and has served as a hosting ground for major projects, including infrastructure for IBM in the past. The growth strategy relies on leasing vast amounts of equipped space to technology giants.
Reliable power is delivered through multiple redundant feeds from the Hebei provincial grid. The facility supports high-density computing, which is essential for the AI and supercomputing workloads it often hosts. Cooling solutions vary across the campus, with newer sectors implementing modern containment strategies to improve efficiency. The operator continues to upgrade the electromechanical systems to meet evolving standards.
The Range facility played a role in the rapid modernization of China's IT sector. It provides a "move-in ready" environment for companies needing massive scale immediately. While precise current tenant lists are private, the facility remains a critical node in the region's digital backbone. It stands as a prime example of the "infrastructure-first" model of development.
6. Meta Prineville Data Campus
The Meta data center campus in Prineville, Oregon, represents the birth of the Open Compute Project. This campus spans approximately 4.6 million square feet of operational space. Meta chose Prineville for its high desert climate, which is ideal for cooling, and its access to clean power. This facility was the first data center entirely designed and owned by the company, shifting away from leased colocation space.
Meta broke ground in 2010 and brought the first building online in 2011. Since then, the campus has expanded to include multiple massive data halls. The growth of this site mirrors the growth of the social network itself, supporting billions of users across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The Prineville campus serves as the blueprint for all subsequent Meta data centers worldwide. It pioneered the use of stripped-down servers that removed unnecessary components to save power.
The power supply comes from Pacific Power, with a strong emphasis on renewables. Meta has committed to reaching net-zero emissions, and the Prineville campus is supported by hundreds of megawatts of new solar capacity developed specifically for the site. The cooling system is revolutionary; it uses 100% outside air with evaporative cooling systems, eliminating the need for traditional chillers. This innovation allows the facility to use significantly less water and electricity than industry standards.
The economic impact on the small town of Prineville has been profound. Meta invested billions into the construction and operation of the campus. The facility employs hundreds of people in a rural area that previously struggled with the decline of the timber industry. It stands as a confirmed achievement in sustainable hyperscale design.
7. Switch SUPERNAP Las Vegas
Before building The Citadel, Switch constructed its headquarters and core campus in Las Vegas, Nevada. The SUPERNAP ecosystem covers over 3.5 million square feet of data center space. This campus introduced the world to Rob Roy's high-density designs. It sits in the Mojave Desert, a location chosen for its lack of natural disasters. The campus serves as a primary connectivity hub for the southwestern United States.
The growth of the Las Vegas campus began in the early 2000s. Switch purchased a former Enron broadband facility and expanded it into the "Core Campus." Over the years, they added SUPERNAP 8, 9, and others, each iterating on the design of the last. The facility is famous for its aesthetics, featuring military-grade security protocols and a futuristic interior design. It hosts the equipment for thousands of clients, ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies.
Power availability is a major selling point. The campus has access to hundreds of megawatts of power. Like its sister site in Reno, the Las Vegas campus runs on 100% renewable energy. The cooling utilizes the same proprietary technologies found at The Citadel, allowing Switch to run high-density racks that would overheat in standard data centers. This efficiency helps clients reduce their carbon footprint.
The SUPERNAP campus holds Tier IV Gold certification standards, a rare achievement indicating the highest level of reliability. Switch guarantees 100% uptime, a promise backed by redundant infrastructure for every critical system. The site has never experienced a system-wide outage in its history, a confirmed achievement that attracts mission-critical workloads from around the globe.
8. Google Council Bluffs
Google operates one of its largest data center campuses in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The total footprint of the facilities here reaches approximately 2.9 million square feet. Google selected Council Bluffs for its access to vast amounts of wind energy and robust fiber infrastructure. This site powers services like Search, Gmail, and YouTube for millions of users in the central United States.
Google announced the Council Bluffs project in 2007. Since then, the company has invested over $5 billion into the site. The campus has grown through multiple phases of construction, adding new server buildings and support facilities. It stands as one of the most mature hyperscale campuses in the world. Google uses this site to deploy its custom hardware, including the Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) used for artificial intelligence.
Sustainability is central to operations at Council Bluffs. Google has matched 100% of its annual electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases since 2017. The Iowa campus benefits from the state's high wind energy production. Cooling involves advanced water management systems. Google uses recycled water and industrial canals to cool its servers, reducing the strain on potable water supplies.
The facility employs hundreds of workers in high-tech jobs. Google has also contributed millions of dollars to local schools and non-profits in the area. The Council Bluffs data center is a key node in Google's global network, which is widely considered the largest private network in the world. The massive scale of this single location highlights the physical reality behind the "cloud."
9. Vantage CWL1
Vantage Data Centers operates the CWL1 campus near Cardiff, Wales. This facility covers approximately 2 million square feet, making it the largest data center campus in Europe. Originally developed by Next Generation Data (NGD), Vantage acquired the site to expand its European footprint. The campus sits on the site of a former LG semiconductor plant, providing it with an incredibly robust power infrastructure already in place.
The history of CWL1 is unique. The massive shell building existed before the data center operator took over. They retrofitted the structure to house modern server halls. This approach allowed for rapid deployment of capacity. Vantage has continued to build out the interior space to meet the demands of hyperscale cloud providers and enterprise customers in the UK. The modular "building-within-a-building" design provides physical security and fire protection.
Power is a standout feature of CWL1. The site connects directly to the 400kV SuperGrid, providing 148 megawatts of power. It runs on 100% renewable energy, certified by the UK government. The cooling system is highly efficient, utilizing free cooling for most of the year due to the mild Welsh climate. This results in a very low PUE, saving customers money on electricity.
The campus is a critical piece of the UK's digital infrastructure. It offers low-latency connectivity to London without the high cost of real estate in the capital. Vantage Data Centers, backed by investors like DigitalBridge, continues to invest in the site. The sheer volume of available space allows tenants to scale indefinitely without moving to a new location.
10. Utah Data Center
The Utah Data Center, code-named Bumblehive, is the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center. Operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), this facility in Bluffdale, Utah, covers 1.5 million square feet. While 100,000 square feet is dedicated to the mission-critical data halls, the supporting infrastructure covers the rest of the massive footprint. Its primary purpose is to store communications data for the US intelligence community.
Construction began in 2011 and finished in 2014 with a reported cost of $1.5 billion. The site faced initial challenges with electrical surges but has operated continuously since. It sits on a high plateau, a location chosen for physical security and easy access to utilities. The facility stores yottabytes of data, although the exact storage capacity remains classified. It serves as the central archive for intercepted signals intelligence.
The facility consumes 65 megawatts of power. The cooling system is immense, utilizing large water tanks and chillers to keep the supercomputers operational. The NSA uses millions of gallons of water daily to dissipate the heat generated by the servers. This high resource consumption has sparked debates about sustainability in the arid Utah climate, leading to upgrades in water management.
While the Utah Data Center does not generate commercial revenue, its impact on global data privacy discussions is undeniable. It represents the apex of government-funded data infrastructure. The site is heavily guarded and operates in secrecy, yet its physical scale makes it impossible to hide. It remains a confirmed cornerstone of US national security infrastructure.
11. Microsoft Azure Chicago Facility
Microsoft operates a large Azure cloud data center campus near Chicago, Illinois, with approximately 280,000 square meters of space dedicated to cloud infrastructure. The site represents one of Microsoft's major investments in North American cloud capacity. Microsoft started building Azure data centers in 2008, shortly after launching the Azure platform. The Chicago facility opened its first phase in 2014, with continuous expansion through 2023. The location serves the central United States region, providing low-latency access to customers across the Midwest and parts of the East Coast.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975, though the company's transformation into a cloud services provider came much later. Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014 and shifted the company's focus toward Azure and cloud computing. Microsoft now operates more than 200 data centers globally, supporting Azure, Office 365, and other cloud services. The Chicago facility hosts virtual machines, storage, databases, and artificial intelligence workloads for enterprise customers. Microsoft's business model involves charging customers based on computing resources consumed rather than leasing physical space.
The facility draws power from the regional grid operator PJM Interconnection, which coordinates electricity supply across 13 states. Microsoft signed power purchase agreements with wind farms in Illinois and Iowa to match the facility's electricity consumption with renewable generation. These agreements total several hundred megawatts of wind capacity, making the Chicago campus one of the largest renewable energy consumers in the state. The data center maintains N+1 redundancy for power systems, meaning one extra component beyond the minimum required for full operation. Uninterruptible power supplies provide battery backup for several minutes while diesel generators start and stabilize. The generator farm holds fuel for 72 hours of independent operation.
Cooling uses Microsoft's standard design for temperate climates, combining air-side economizers with mechanical cooling. Chicago's weather allows free cooling for much of the year. Outside air passes through filters and enters the data halls when temperatures permit. During hot summer months, the facility switches to chilled water cooling. Microsoft built the campus with sustainability in mind, achieving LEED Gold certification for the buildings. Water consumption for cooling remains a concern in data center operations. Microsoft invested in water recycling systems and uses treated rainwater for cooling towers where possible. The company reports a power usage effectiveness of 1.25 for the Chicago facility. Microsoft's total revenue reached 211 billion dollars in fiscal year 2024, with Azure contributing a significant portion of that figure. Specific revenue for individual facilities is not disclosed. The Chicago data center supports millions of users accessing Microsoft services daily. The facility employs several hundred operations staff, security personnel, and engineers. Learn more at the Microsoft official website.
Tips for Choosing the Best Data Center
Check Connectivity: Do not look only at space. Verify the carrier list. A facility with only one or two fiber providers creates a risk of disconnection. Look for "carrier-neutral" sites that allow you to switch providers easily.
Review SLAs carefully: Service Level Agreements define your compensation if the power goes out. Look for "100% uptime" guarantees on power and cooling. Avoid providers that only offer 99.9% ("three nines") for mission-critical tasks.
Inspect Physical Security: Your data is only safe if the drive is safe. Ask about biometric scanners, man-traps, and 24/7 guard presence. A simple keycard lock is often insufficient for sensitive compliance requirements.
Assess Disaster Risk: innovative features mean nothing if the building floods. Check flood plain maps and seismic zones. The best data centers sit outside major flight paths and away from hazardous chemical plants.
Conclusion
The global demand for digital services drives the construction of these massive facilities. From the windswept plains of Inner Mongolia to the deserts of Nevada, data centers serve as the physical engines of the internet. They consume vast resources but deliver the connectivity modern society relies upon. As artificial intelligence grows, these buildings will likely become even larger and more power-hungry. The list above represents the current peak of this engineering race.
Frequently Asked Questions
The China Telecom Inner Mongolia Information Park is currently the largest by physical area, covering over 10 million square feet.
Hyperscale facilities often consume between 50 and 150 megawatts (MW) of power. Some planned campuses target capacities of 650 MW or more.
Cold climates allow operators to use outside air to cool servers. This "free cooling" reduces the electricity needed for mechanical chillers.
Hyperscale refers to massive facilities built by major tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Meta that can scale rapidly to support millions of servers.
Many top operators like Switch, Google, and Meta power their facilities with 100% renewable energy through solar and wind farm contracts.
Colocation is when a business rents space, power, and cooling for their own servers inside a third-party data center.
Tier 4 is a certification indicating a facility has fully redundant components and fault tolerance, guaranteeing 99.995% availability.
Data centers provide physical security. Cybersecurity depends on the network software and firewalls managed by the clients using the servers.
A large facility can use millions of gallons of water per day for cooling, though modern designs use closed loops to recycle water.
Batteries (UPS) provide instant power while large diesel or gas generators start up to take the full load indefinitely.
