Data center in Berlin? Possible but not likely

How much do Berlin residents and town officials have to worry about the possibility of someone building a data center in their midst? Probably not much, since developing even a small facility of this kind would be a significant undertaking.

For one thing, finding enough space to build a comparatively small 5,000-square-foot structure would not be easy.

The town’s standard zoning designations would place most property off limits, and that is only the first obstacle. This hypothetical data center would require more than standard high-speed internet. It would need Dedicated Internet Access through a commercial fiber-optic line capable of transmitting at least 10 gigabits per second (Gbps).

According to BroadbandNow Research, that is five to 10 times faster than the residential internet service available in Berlin. Although that level of connectivity is available to commercial enterprises in the area, extending that service to a new data center would be expensive because Dedicated Internet Access provides a private connection between a business and the internet.

Then there is the matter of electricity and water. Even a small data center could spend millions of dollars annually on power, assuming sufficient electrical capacity is available. Its operators also could require millions of gallons of water each year for cooling. Again, that assumes the water is available.

Various researchers estimate that a 5,000-square-foot data center’s annual water usage would be roughly equivalent to that of 1,000 households.

Companies that specialize in data-center development estimate that constructing and bringing such a facility online would cost about $10 million to $12 million per megawatt. This hypothetical facility would require between 1 and 5 megawatts of power, depending on the number of servers it operates.

Given these factors, bringing a data center to Berlin would require a Goldilocks set of circumstances in which electrical power, water, internet access, zoning and financing all align perfectly: not too much, not too little, but just right.