QTS Realty Trust, Inc. (popularly known as Quality Technology Services, QTS or QTS Data Centers) is a provider of carrier-neutral data centers and provides colocation services within North America and Northern Amsterdam and is based in

Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, Kansas, it is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the most populous suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As o ...

. The company's largest operating areas are:

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. Wit ...

, Dallas/Fort Worth,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Hillsboro, Oregon, and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. The company has been named the most sustainable company in the data center industry for two years in a row (2019, 2020) by World Finance Magazine. The company is also a member of the RE100, a global corporate leadership initiative bringing together influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity. On August 31, 2021, QTS announced that companies affiliated with the

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

had completed the acquisition of the company for approximately $10 billion.

History

Timeline

In 2003, Chad Williams founded the company with the purchase of a data center in

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. In October 2005, the company acquired Deltacom's e^deltacom business unit and its data center in

Suwanee, Georgia Suwanee is a city in Gwinnett County and a northeastern suburb of Atlanta in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,355; this had grown to an estimated 20,907 as of 2019. Portions of Forsyth and Fulton counties ...

for $26 million. In October 2006, the company acquired a 960,000 square foot data center in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

as well as Globix Hosting LLC for a total of $161 million. The company also acquired NTT USA LLC, which owned a 130,000 square foot facility in the New York City area. In December 2007, the company acquired the customers of First National Technology Solutions. The company also acquired 120,000 square feet of data center and office technology space in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. In April 2008, the company expanded into

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. In 2010, the company acquired the former

Qimonda Qimonda AG ( ) was a German memory company split out of Infineon Technologies (itself a spun off business unit of Siemens AG) on 1 May 2006 to form at the time the second largest DRAM company worldwide, according to the industry research firm Ga ...

semiconductor site in Richmond, Virginia and converted the property into a 1.3 million square foot mega data center. The MAREA and BRUSA subsea cable systems operated by

Telxius Telxius Telecom S.A. is a global telecommunications infrastructure company created in 2016, owned by Telefónica Infra, a subsidiary of Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica. History On February 21, 2017, Telefónica announced an agree ...

terminate in this facility, forming the QTS Richmond Network Access Point. The QTS Richmond Network Access Point or the NAP was co-founded by Clint Heiden, former Chief Revenue Officer of QTS and Vinay Nagpal, President of InterGlobix, LLC. In 2011, the company acquired a data center in

Lenexa, Kansas Lenexa is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States. It is one of four principal cities of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and 9th most populated city of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 57,434. It is ...

. In January 2013, the company acquired Herakles LLC and its 92,000 square-foot data center in San Francisco. In February 2013, the company acquired 40 acres in

Irving, Texas Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau, ...

for construction of a data center facility. In October 2013, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. In April 2014, the company acquired the former

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

plant with plans to convert it into a data center. In June 2015, the company acquired Carpathia Hosting for $326 million. In June 2016, the company acquired a data center campus in

from

DuPont Fabros Technology DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. (DFT) was a real estate investment trust that invested in carrier-neutral data centers and provided colocation and peering services. In 2017, the company was acquired by Digital Realty. Operations As of Decembe ...

for $125 million. In January 2017, the company acquired a 260,000 square foot data center in

for $50 million. In May 2017, the company acquired a 3.4-acre parcel next to its Atlanta facility for $1 million. In April 2019, the company acquired 2 data centers in the Netherlands (

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

and

Eemshaven Eemshaven (; en, Ems Harbor) is a seaport in the province of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. In 1968, the Dutch government declared the Ems estuary ( Eemsmond) to be an economic key region. One of the key developments for the regi ...

) for $44 million. In November 2019, the company announced the expansion of its Atlanta data center campus, totaling more than 250,000 square feet of leasable capacity. Development finished in 2020. In 2020, the company expanded its commitment to environmental sustainability by partnering with American Forests and World Vision. The company also started development on its greenfield data center campus in Hillsboro, Oregon with completion in 2021. The data center facility is run entirely with renewable energy. In 2021, the company announced a total of eight data center facilities utilizing renewable energy to power operations.

Acquisitions and expansions

In 2021, Blackstone Group Inc.'s infrastructure unit, Blackstone Infrastructure Partners and its nontraded real-estate investment trust, known as BREIT, have agreed to pay $78 a share for QTS. The acquisition was completed on August 31, 2021.

Data center locations

QTS Realty Trust owns or operates 28 data center locations across the United States and Netherlands in the following areas:

United States

# Arizona # California # Florida # Georgia # Illinois # Kansas # New Jersey # Oregon # Texas # Virginia

Netherlands

# Eemshaven # Groningen

References

External links

{{Authority control 2003 establishments in Kansas American companies established in 2003 Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Data centers Real estate investment trusts of the United States 2013 initial public offerings 2021 mergers and acquisitions