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Data Center View - June 11, 2025 - T5 tops out 36MW Chicago data center

Data Center View - June 11, 2025 - T5 tops out 36MW Chicago data center

American Tower opens edge data center in Raleigh. Soluna signs power deal for 75MW solar-powered data center. Amazon pauses Minnesota project. Texas 1GW site clears key milestones. Two new data center deals.

Matt H
June 11, 2025

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NEWS ROUNDUP

DEVELOPMENT: T5 tops out 36MW Chicago data center. T5 Data Centers has topped out its Chicago III facility in Northlake, IL, marking the completion of structural work on the 250,000 sq ft, 36MW data center. Built by Clune Construction, the project was first announced in 2023. “This milestone reflects the trust we’ve built with our client and the pride our people bring to the job every day,” said Brian Donahue, managing director at Clune. T5 already operates two nearby facilities—Chicago I (20MW) and Chicago II (30MW)—in Elk Grove Village. The company is also developing Chicago IV, a 1.2GW hyperscale campus in Grayslake with 20 planned 60MW buildings, slated to begin phased delivery by 2027.

DEVELOPMENT: American Tower opens edge data center in Raleigh. American Tower Corporation has launched its first Edge data center in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, opening a 4,000 sq ft, 1MW facility in Raleigh. Known as RA1, the site—located at the base of an existing ATC cellular tower—can scale to 4MW across 16,000 sq ft at full build-out. The facility will function as a colocation and interconnection hub, bridging the gap between cloud data centers and the Edge. Jake Rasweiler, SVP of innovation at American Tower, cited Raleigh’s rapid growth and central location as key factors for the site’s selection. The company says RA1 is designed to support AI, hybrid cloud, and IoT workloads, with average power capacity of 15kW per rack. Following the launch, American Tower announced plans to expand its Edge data center footprint, identifying over 1,000 tower sites nationwide as technically viable for future deployment.

DEVELOPMENT: Soluna signs power deal for 75MW solar-powered data center in Texas. Soluna has secured a power procurement agreement for Project Annie, a 75MW data center in northeast Texas that will be co-located with a 114MW solar farm. Developed alongside an undisclosed renewable energy partner, Project Annie marks Soluna’s first solar-powered facility, joining a portfolio of nine data centers—eight of which are currently wind-powered. “This is a game-changer,” said Soluna CEO John Belizaire. “It’s our first project tapping solar energy, and it paves the way for sustainable computing that works in harmony with the sun.”

DEVELOPMENT: Amazon pauses Minnesota data center. Amazon is halting development of its planned data center in Becker, Minnesota, citing uncertainty and shifting focus to sites that can deliver capacity faster. The tech giant had purchased 350 acres near Xcel Energy’s Sherco coal plant—slated for closure by 2030 and replacement by a major solar project. Spokesperson Duncan Neasham said factors like grid reliability, build speed, and power costs influenced the pause.

DEVELOPMENT: Texas 1GW site clears key milestone as global AI infrastructure race accelerates. A 1,000MW land package in Texas has cleared early engineering and interconnection benchmarks, unlocking firm grid capacity and a matching 1GWh Tesla Megapack battery system. The site—available in 250MW blocks—is positioned on the ERCOT grid and targets a 2028 commissioning, catering to hyperscale and AI compute tenants seeking scalable, low-carbon power. “This power block is fully mapped to ERCOT queue positions, and the storage component stabilizes renewable output for AI inference loads,” said Roxanne Marquis, Texas broker and data-center land specialist at 8888CRE.

READ: 70% of Americans would welcome a nearby data center if its built responsibly.