The former SolarWorld factory in Hillsboro will become a data center owned by the Japanese technology company NTT.
Japanese company NTT plans a 47-acre data center on SolarWorld’s Hillsboro site. According to the announcement, it is planned to build a 1-million-square-foot server farm on the property. The format SolarWorld factory will become a datacenter.
Five buildings on the campus
Hillsboro’s industrial land is being consumed by server farms. Japanese semiconductor company Komatsu Silicon America spent $500 million to build the Hillsboro campus during the 1990s. However, they did not open the factory because of a sharp downturn in chip prices.
SolarWorld employed several hundred workers building solar panels with help from $100 million in tax incentives. The company had cut off its workers in 2017 and then sold the property to a California company called SunPower for $26 million. Now, SunPower sold the property to NTT in September for 63.5 million. SunPower continues to employ more than 200 people making solar panels on a portion of the property.
According to the announcement of NTT, the company will operate five buildings on the campus with a total capacity of 144 megawatts. The first phase will be online by the middle of this year. They also said the Hillsboro site is eligible for property tax exemptions on the high-end computer companies install at the site.
Source: 1