The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff, Wire Reports

Posted: Monday, December 31, 2018 04:29 PM

Knoxville To Become Home Of Tennessee's First High-Density Edge Data Center

Knoxville will soon be the home to Tennessee's first high-density edge data center.

SH Data Technologies unveiled plans to open the Tier III data center to create a regional anchor for businesses with "big data" needs, including data storage, security and virtualization.

Officials will break ground on the data center on Jan. 29 at 4 p.m. at the site of the former Fort Hill building at 901 East Summit Hill Avenue.

“This facility will be the cornerstone of a broader strategy to provide technology solutions with unlimited scale,” said Butch Smith, founder of Smith & Hammacher and CEO of SH Data Technologies. "This data center will be Knoxville’s first Tier III data center, and will attract businesses from other regional cities outside of Knoxville to use our technology to manage, scale, and protect their highest priority data.

The first phase of the data center will include a restoration of the Fort Hill building, which, when completed, will consist of 33,000 square feet of commercial office space and 8,000 square feet of data center space.

“We are extremely grateful to Mayors Madeline Rogero and Tim Burchett and Bank of Tennessee” said Smith. “This is a great example of public leaders and private entrepreneurship creating a competitive advantage for Knoxville.”

The company also plans to offer disaster recovery, technology integration and managed-cloud services.