As one of the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., Atlanta is well known for many reasons. It’s home to iconic brands like Coca-Cola, and its arts and music culture has had a lasting impact globally. However, in recent years, The Big Peach has become renowned for a new reason: it’s undeniably grown into a powerhouse for the data center industry. The Greater Atlanta area is home to more than 50 major data centers operated by some of the world’s leading companies, making it a vital location for digital infrastructure.
Here are some of the top reasons the Greater Atlanta area shines as a data center hub in North America.
Business-Friendly Environment & Low Natural Disaster Risk
The state of Georgia is home to 18 Fortune 500 companies, many of which are headquartered in the Greater Atlanta area. This healthy business community fuels the demand for digital infrastructure to serve ever-rising enterprise IT needs.
In addition, the area’s favorable climate makes it an attractive location for data center operators that require high resilience and uptime. The reduced risk of severe weather events means less risk of outages or interruptions, allowing data center providers to continuously serve their customers.
Robust Infrastructure
Atlanta is frequently among the top five markets in the U.S. for total bandwidth and fiber access, making it known as “America’s Most Wired City.” Nearly every major fiber provider has a core interconnection point in Greater Atlanta. The metro area’s existing infrastructure, paired with its proximity to the growing subsea cable landing station hub of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, solidifies its position as one of the most important data center markets in the nation. Together, the local and regional assets provide mission-critical services that local enterprises need to reach their global audiences.
BIG Fiber’s Game-Changing Contribution to the Greater Atlanta Data Center Market
With record demand for data center services at existing facilities in Greater Atlanta and an unprecedented amount of planned data centers, BIG Fiber is making major investments to transform Atlanta’s digital infrastructure landscape. BIG Fiber recently announced a dark fiber network expansion that will double its footprint in Atlanta, building a critical dark fiber route that will benefit dozens of data center operators and hyperscalers in the region. It will also fulfill a major need for new dark fiber to empower the critical services data centers provide across the metro area. Land and power constraints inside the core of Atlanta have led to an increase in data centers being built across the broader metro area.
As part of the expansion, BIG Fiber is working with data center providers and leaders in Atlanta and emerging communities to create additional dark fiber services within the city and to create brand-new dark fiber solutions in new areas, resulting in mission-critical services being provided across a much larger geographic area. This provides services to enterprises in growing areas of demand and helps to bridge the digital divide gap with middle-mile infrastructure. BIG Fiber’s project will provide much-needed dark fiber services to data centers in places like Douglasville and Lithia Springs, as well as Rockdale, Fayette, and Newton Counties.
Check out Bruce Garrison, CEO, as he talks about the project in a recent interview with JSA TV here!
Future-Ready Digital Infrastructure: Why Atlanta Businesses Need Dark Fiber for AI-Powered Growth
Dark fiber networks are an essential part of a modern digital network, enabling cloud and AI-based applications. With enterprise AI adoption rising, more digital infrastructure capacity to empower AI capabilities will become crucial. Only new dark fiber networks can meet the demand. Data centers must process massive amounts of data generated by AI and other emerging technologies, making BIG Fiber’s Greater Atlanta dark fiber network a critical piece of the local business landscape.
To learn more about our Greater Atlanta dark fiber network, click here. Check out our Atlanta network map here.