LightEdge Adds Minnesota Data Center To Its Portfolio

This is the latest in a string of recent acquisitions for LightEdge after it was acquired by GI Partners in 2021. Since then, LightEdge has made three acquisitions, added five data centers, and expanded its network capacity by a factor of 10, LightEdge says

LightEdge, an Iowa-based data center company, has planted a stake in Minnesota with the acquisition of a 76,000-square-foot facility.

LightEdge said the company’s newest 3.6-megawatt data center can readily support AI workloads with 50-plus-kilowatt racks and high-density deployments. It is planning to hire an unspecified number of additional sales and support staff in the Minneapolis market as the team expands.

This is the latest in a string of recent acquisitions for LightEdge after it was acquired by investment firm GI Partners in 2021. Since then, LightEdge has made three acquisitions, added five data centers, and expanded its network capacity by a factor of 10, LightEdge said. It has also upgraded its cloud portfolio.

The newest data center benefits from the Minnesota Data Center Tax Incentive program, which offers savings to participating companies and up to 40-percent reduction in total occupancy costs.

For customers, the state-based incentives include no sales tax on IT equipment, data center infrastructure, computer licensing, software, or electricity use at the facility.

LightEdge said the facitiliy is built tough enough to withstand 185-mile-an-hour winds. That gives tenants a 64-mile per-hour buffer against the top Minnesota windspeed ever recorded, which was 121 miles perhour in Donaldson, Minn., in September 2011.

Des Moines, Iowa-based LightEdge said this facility is in Chaska, Minn. -- about 380 miles south of Donaldson -- and just 25 miles from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.

The 30,000 square feet of space is spread across three private data center suites, and has two utility feeds from two substations. Its disaster recovery is backed by 2N or N+1 Tier 3 concurrent maintainable configurations.

LightEdge said the facility carries several specialized certifications including: ISO 27001, PCI DSS, SOC (1, Type 1 & 2, Type 2), and LEED Silver certified. However the company vowed to add more to the facility — including HIPAA, HITRUST, ISO 20000, ISO 22301, NIST, ITAR and CJIS.

In doing so LightEdge said it is “catering to highly regulated sectors like finance, insurance, and healthcare.” LightEdge was founded as a midwest-focused ISP in 1996. Today the company owns and runs 12 Tier III data centers across the country, and boasts more than 1,300 customers.

LightEdge said it is focused on delivering cloud, colocation, connectivity and managed services to highly regulated markets and sophisticated customers with strict uptime requirements.