Sunday, December 14, 2014

Selling the cold, Minnesota's tech community welcomes data centers

 Article by: MATT MCKINNEY , Star Tribune

The bracing chill of a Minnesota winter doesn’t make for alluring tourism slogans, but there is an industry beyond dogsledding in which it’s a selling point: data centers.

Selling all that cold air to tech companies that need to keep towers of computers from overheating has become the work of people like Tom Lambrecht, manager of economic development services for the utility cooperative Great River Energy.

“It’s hard to get a professional volleyball league to come up here, but we can get a data center,” said Lambrecht.

That’s the hope, anyway, of an increasing number of Minnesota cities from North Mankato to St. Cloud who see a long-term boost to property tax revenues in data centers — the places where all of the information on the Internet gets stored.  More here.

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