LightEdge recently announced its strategic entry into Minneapolis with the acquisition of an Uptime Tier III Design Certified 76,000-square-foot, 3.6 MW data center in Chaska, Minnesota. The team will make a significant investment to deploy its enterprise LightEdge Cloud, fully redundant network, cloud on-ramps and managed services to local businesses.
"We are excited to enter the Minneapolis market, invest in this rapidly growing region and deliver our best-in-class IT solutions to a new state," said Jim Masterson, CEO of LightEdge. "We are dedicated to building and supporting tailored cloud solutions delivered from in-market data centers that meet the rigorous demands of enterprise-grade operations and empower local companies with seamless connectivity and the robust infrastructure needed to thrive in today's digital landscape."
The Minneapolis data center is part of Minnesota's Data Center Tax Incentive program which offers substantial cost savings and up to 40% reductions in total occupancy costs. Client incentives include no sales tax on all IT equipment, data center infrastructure, computer licensing and software, and electricity used at the facility, as well as no personal property tax. A highly secure facility designed to withstand 185-mile-per-hour winds, the data center offers two utility feeds from two substations and disaster recovery office space backed by 2N or N+1 Tier 3 concurrent maintainable configurations. Only 25 miles from Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, the facility houses 30,000 square feet of data hall space across three private data center suites.
The facility is ISO 27001, PCI DSS, SOC (1, Type 1 & 2, Type 2), and LEED Silver certified. LightEdge will quickly expand certifications at the location — including HIPAA, HITRUST, ISO 20000, ISO 22301, NIST, ITAR and CJIS, catering to highly regulated sectors like finance, insurance, and healthcare.
Founded in 1996, LightEdge now owns and operates 12 purpose-built data centers across the U.S. In 2021, GI Partners acquired a controlling stake in LightEdge, with a thesis to support and accelerate growth of the business. Since then, LightEdge has made three acquisitions, added five data centers, expanded its network capacity tenfold, and upgraded its cloud portfolio.
The Minneapolis data center has capacity available immediately, and it can readily support AI workloads with 50+ KW racks and high-density deployments. LightEdge is planning to hire additional sales and support staff in the Minneapolis market as the team expands operations.
