Telus increases cloud service power with $67M Kamloops data center

TELUS (NYSE: TU) is giving Canadian business customers another option to outsource their applications into a cloud environment, announcing that it has opened a new $67 million data center in Kamloops.

Serving as the foundation to deliver cloud services and accommodate future physical footprint and information storage capacity, this is one of eight data centers the telco has built.

The new data center is part of a broader $2.7 billion investment program dedicated for infrastructure and facilities upgrades that TELUS is making across British Columbia from 2012 through 2014. It also builds upon the $26 billion it already has invested in operations and technology throughout the province since 2000.

To make the data center environmentally friendly, the company has incorporated a cooling system that it says consumes 80 percent less electricity and 86 percent less water than typical data centers.

Since the center will only require 40 hours of mechanical cooling energy per year, TELUS said it will keep nearly 2,300 tons of carbon dioxide out of the environment annually.

"The center's modular design and ability to expand to meet the growing demands of our clients is rooted in our passion for putting customers first in all we do, and positions TELUS to lead the industry in sustainable data cent[ers]," said Lloyd Switzer, TELUS senior vice president of Network Transformation, in a release. "Kamloops is the perfect location for this world-class center due to its geography, climate, proximity to our networks and clean power, and the presence of a highly skilled workforce."

Building out environmentally friendly data centers have been a growing priority for TELUS. Besides its center in Kamloops, the telco uses waste heat from its data center in Vancouver to power heating and cooling systems of its nearby $750 million mixed-use TELUS Garden development.

For more:
- see the release

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