Switch is a company based in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, that develops and operates the SUPERNAP data center facilities and provides colocation,

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

cloud services Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed computing, ...

, and content ecosystems.Overgaard, Krist
"Switch SUPERNAP Named as the First and Only Registered Hosting Center for Online Gaming by the Nevada Gaming Commission"
Nevada Business. May 31, 2013

History

Switch was founded in 2000 by Rob Roy, CEO and the organization's principal inventor and chief engineer.Miller, Ric
"SuperNAP 8 Earns Tier IV Gold Status for Operations"
Data Center Knowledge. August 5, 2014 In 2002, Roy purchased a former

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. ...

facility in Nevada in an auction only attended by Roy since Enron's "fiber plans were so secretive that few people even knew about the auction", with the facility which Enron invested millions of dollars into selling for only $930,000. The facility was built in a rundown area of Las Vegas near E Sahara, constructed right over the "backbone" of fiber optic cables providing service to technology companies nationwide, which Enron sought to use as a way to sell bandwidth to Internet service providers like a commodity. Six years later, in 2008, Switch was planning to build its first SUPERNAP facility which would "rival anything being built by the likes of Microsoft and Google" for $350 million, with Roy stating that he could store "four times as much gear as those companies do in his center". Rob Roy holds 500 patents or patent-pending claims for SUPERNAP designs and engineering that have been Tier IV certified by the Uptime Institute. In 2017, the company announced it would no longer pursue certifications by the

Uptime Institute 451 Group is a New York City-based technology industry research firm. Through its Uptime Institute operating unit, the company provides research for data center operators. In December 2019, 451 Group sold an operating division, 451 Research, to in ...

, and instead planned to create a non-profit organization to control and define a new

data center A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunic ...

standard that uses 30 additional metrics and is called Tier 5 Platinum, and that they have plans to follow the new standards. Switch is a CLEC (

Competitive Local Exchange Carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a " carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrie ...

) that sells all telecommunications services. As of July 2015, half of the company's 14 top executives are women.Rothberg, Daniel
“With seven women among its top 14 executives, Switch sets itself apart.”
Vegas Inc. July 20, 2015 Seventy-percent of the current workforce are veterans.Evans, Pat
"Regional tech industry welcomes Switch."
Grand Rapids Business Journal. Dec. 18, 2015 In 2015, the company became the first data center service in the U.S. to participate in President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

's American Business Act on Climate Pledge.Booth, Nick
"Switch joins carbon campaign, announces 100MW solar farm."
Datacenter Dynamics. Aug. 26, 2015 Switch is currently constructing the first of two

solar farms A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...

, which will provide renewable energy to its data centers.Sverdlik, Yevgeniy
“Switch Joins Obama’s Business Climate Pledge, Plans 100 MW Solar Project in Nevada.”
Data Center Knowledge. Aug. 24, 2015 As of January 1, 2016 all Switch data centers are powered exclusively by clean and renewable energy. In 2016 Switch joined the WWF/WRI Renewable Buyers’ Principles. In its 2017 report on the energy footprint of the IT sector,

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

recognized Switch for the company's use of renewable energy in its data centers. In 2020, construction started on a 555 MW solar project in Nevada, of which 127 MW is behind-the-meter at Citadel.

Data centers

In 2008, the company opened SUPERNAP 7, a facility, its seventh data center. In 2017, LAS VEGAS 10 opened adding approximately of data center space. The Core Campus located in Las Vegas consists of eleven operating data centers spanning over . At completion of construction, The Core Campus will measure more than with 12 buildings.Luxford, Holli
"SuperNAP Data Centers Branches Out of the US"
Data Center Dynamics. March 13, 2014Miller, Ric
"Shutterfly Deploys 1,000 Cabinets at Switch SUPERNAP"
Data Center Knowledge. October 16, 2014 Power to the data facilities will be generated through two solar generation projects, Switch Station 1 and Switch Station 2. The Switch Stations will produce 179-megawatts of power and were originally part of a joint construction project through First Solar in partnership with

NV Energy NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno–Sparks metropolitan area of northern Nevada ...

.Miller, Rich
"Switch goes green with renewable power for SUPERNAPs."
Data Center Frontier. Jan. 5, 2016 In June 2017, EDF Renewable Energy acquired the two solar projects from First Solar. Switch has sued

for $30 million over disagreements about power price, and in 2016 Switch was allowed to switch from NV Energy to its own solar power plants at an "exit fee" of $27 million. In January, 2015 Switch announced a $4 billion expansion plan to build a new data center campus east of Reno in Storey County. The Citadel Campus at

Tahoe Reno Industrial Center The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRI Center, or TRIC) is a privately owned industrial park, located in Storey County, east of Reno, Nevada and south of Interstate 80. The center is the largest in the United States (third largest in the world), ...

(TRIC) is over and is expected to have more than of data center space at completion. In February 2017, Switch opened its first data center on the campus, TAHOE RENO 1, which will be more than , have 130 MVA power capacity, and more than 83,000 tons of cooling capability, making it the largest data center campus in the world.Hidalgo, Jason
"On Switch: Reno-area SuperNAP to be largest data center on Earth."
Reno Gazette-Journal. Sept. 14, 2015 This is the first of eight planned data centers to be built at TRIC. In order to connect its Las Vegas and Tahoe-Reno campus, Switch is building the Switch SUPERLOOP fiber network, which will connect Las Vegas to Reno through 500-miles (800 km) of fiber. The Switch SUPERLOOP will extend directly to include

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

.Miller, Rich
"Switch Plans Massive $1 Billion SUPERNAP Data Center in Reno"
Data Center Knowledge. Jan. 15, 2015 Switch's Pyramid Campus (former Steelcase Pyramid) in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the List of municipalities in Mi ...

was opened in May 2017. At completion, it will reach up to making it the largest data center campus in the eastern U.S.Harger, Jim
"Switch confirms plans for $5B investment, 1,000 jobs at West Michigan data center."
Nov. 16, 2015

SUPERNAP International

In 2014, Switch formed SUPERNAP International in partnership with ACDC Fund and its two limited partners Orascom TMT Investments and Accelero Capital to build data centers based on designs from the Tier IV-rated Switch SUPERNAP U.S. facilities. The two new SUPERNAP International campus projects under construction are located in

Siziano Siziano is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 15 km south of Milan and about 15 km north of Pavia. Siziano borders the following municipalities: Bornasco Bornasco is a ''co ...

, Italy slated to open late 2016 and the Chonburi Province, Thailand campus opening in early 2017.Longhitano, Lorenzo
"Internet, aprirà in Italia il principale snodo di connettività europeo."
Wired Italy. Oct. 6, 2015Mah, Paul
"Construction begins on SuperNAP Thailand"
Datacenter Dynamics. Jan. 27, 2016 The SUPERNAP data center campus in

, Italy will be and have 40-megawatt power distributed via two 132kV transmission paths. The US$300 million (11 billion THB) Thailand SUPERNAP data center facility will have capacity for more than 6,000 data server racks. It will cover an area of nearly 75 rai (12 hectares) and is located 27-kilometers away from an international cable landing station linking national and international telecoms and IT carriers.Sverdlik, Yevgeniy
"Switch Building SuperNap Mega Data Center in Thailand"
Data Center Knowledge. Jan. 14, 2016

Locations

Switch headquarters are in Las Vegas, with data center facilities and Innovation Centers located in northern and southern Nevada. The firm added a campus in Grand Rapids,

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and recently announced plans to develop a more than data center campus in Atlanta, Georgia.Harger, Jim
"$5B Switch data center in Steelcase pyramid is 'Michigan's to lose'"
Mlive. Nov 30, 2015

Customers

Switch has hundreds of clients, including Fortune 1000

companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...

.Brodkin, Joh
"Meet Rob Roy, the man who built the SuperNAP data center"
Network World. Jan. 22, 2009 According to ''

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

'', "organizations turn to Switch for black-ops projects, spam filtering of the most serious proportions, utility computing projects, data warehouses at casinos, modeling, online games and ordinary e-commerce". Switch developed an over $5 trillion purchasing cooperative to allow customers to collectively purchase telecommunications and other services across all of its campuses.

Certifications and awards

Switch SUPERNAP 8 data center has received Tier IV Gold Operational Sustainability Certificate from the

, a Tier IV Constructed Facility Certificate and Tier IV Design Certificate. In addition, Switch SUPERNAP 9 has received a Tier IV Gold Operational Sustainability Certificate, a Tier IV Design Certificate and a Tier IV Constructed Facility Certificate.

Supercomputers

In 2014, the firm announced collaboration with

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

and the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the S ...

to give university researchers access to a powerful supercomputer. iSupercomputer Cherry Creek will be housed on Switch's campus, with researchers accessing the computer through the SUPERNAP facilities' telecommunications network.Schmidt, Wil
"UNLV Awarded the Use of Intel's World-Class Supercomputer Cherry Creek"
Tech Cocktail Las Vegas. Oct. 13, 2014 In 2017, the firm donated $3.4 million in data center services to the University of Nevada, Reno for a new supercomputer, called Pronghorn. The supercomputer will be housed in the TAHOE RENO 1 data center, and it is expected that the initial hardware installation will be completed in September 2017.

Collaborative centers

The firm has designed a center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It partnered with the University of Nevada, Reno to develop the northern Nevada-based center in Reno which opened in September 2015. The centers are intended for collaboration between students, entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and non-profits.Villarreal, Crysta
"Straight Shooter"
Site Selection They are named "inNEVation Center". The Reno center is home to the Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innevation Center (NAASIC). Funded by a grant from Governor's Office of Economic Development, it hosts programs to commercialize stationary robotic and advanced manufacturing systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, driverless cars, and underwater robots.Wolterbeek, Mike
"NAASIC to spur autonomous systems development, receives $3 million in state funding"
University of Reno

References

Relevant patents

Patent number 8,072,780 December 6, 2011 * [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=16&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&p=1&S1=8180495&OS=8180495&RS=8180495 U.S. Patent-Server system with heat dissipation device] Patent number 8,300,402 October 30, 2012
U.S. Patent-Data center air handling unit
Patent number 8,469,782 June 25, 2013

Patent number 8,523,643 September 3, 2013 * [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=9198331.PN.&OS=PN/9198331&RS=PN/9198331 U.S. Patent-Data center facility design configuration] Patent number 9,198,331 November 24, 2015

External links

*
''A Look Inside the Vegas SuperNAP''
Data Center Knowledge {{Authority control Networking companies of the United States Companies based in Enterprise, Nevada Internet mirror services 2000 establishments in Nevada American companies established in 2000 2017 initial public offerings