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Hillsboro’s data center industry is increasingly gaining national attention with rapid growth, and quickly emerging as one of the leading markets in the U.S.

Heading into 2022, Hillsboro had under construction a remarkable 234.8 megawatts of data center capacity 鈥� 85 percent of which was preleased to a social media company, according to a new CBRE report. (Facebook has been widely reported to have leased space at QTS Hillsboro Data Center).

The under-construction total represented a 481 percent increase, and the second-highest amount in the nation, trailing only Northern Virginia’s 239 megawatts, according to CBRE.

鈥�(Hillsboro) is firmly on the radar, and it’s becoming a transition from a tier-two secondary market to a tier-one primary market,鈥� said Carlo Castoro, a CBRE broker who focuses on Hillsboro data centers. 鈥淎 lot of money is flowing into Hillsboro. These structures are super-expensive. The pace and scale of development is really remarkable.鈥�

The Washington County tech capital posted the highest absorption among secondary markets in the country in the second half of 2021, taking 6.6 megawatts, according to CBRE.

The data centers are tightly concentrated around a fiber ring network in Washington County. The cluster is located near U.S. Route 26, approximately between Hillsboro Airport and Topgolf.

Hillsboro’s experience working with tech companies has made it easier for data center operators that have chosen the city, Castoro said.

鈥淭he city of Hillsboro was accustomed to dealing with Intel and providing the infrastructure to do what they do,鈥� he said.

Hillsboro also benefits from low latency to Silicon Valley and Seattle 鈥� both major tech markets 鈥� and undersea fiber that reaches land on the Oregon Coast, Castoro said.

Prineville has also seen strong data center growth, driven by Facebook, which has 11 data centers totaling 4.6 million square feet at its massive campus there, industry publication Data Center Dynamics reported. The Prineville campus may be bumping up against power constraints, Castoro said. 鈥淚f they’re not tapped out, they might be getting close,鈥� he said.

Another major tech company, Google, operates a data center in The Dalles.

Hillsboro’s net absorption of 21.2 megawatts in 2021 placed the market seventh nationally, behind Northern Virginia (303.3), Atlanta (70.4), Phoenix (29.8), Dallas-Fort Worth (28.6), Chicago (27.4) and Silicon Valley (23.3).

The burst in activity is attracting contractors such as Skanska and DPR Construction and professional services firms. Gensler is among the designers that have targeted the market.

鈥淕ensler has been in the critical facilities market and working in multiple Oregon locations for a number of years,鈥� John Wix, principal and managing director of the firm’s Portland office, stated in an email in response to questions. 鈥淩ecently, however, we have seen a notable increase in data center activities locally and have been focused on building a dedicated team here in our Portland office to help grow the regional and global practice.鈥�

Designers are pursuing better energy performance for the notoriously high-demand buildings. One solution Gensler is working on is immersive cooling, in which servers are submerged in liquid to cool them. The technology has the potential to change the shape, size and location of future data centers, Wix stated.

Both Castoro and Wix said they’ve seen an increase in so-called 鈥渆dge鈥� centers 鈥� smaller data centers that locate processing power nearer to end users.

鈥淲hile our clients take us to multiple market locations, Hillsboro continues to be very active for critical facility building types,鈥� Wix stated. 鈥淲e expect this activity to continue in western Oregon, and to see growth in other Oregon market locations as well.鈥�