Telus (TSX:T) has opened a $75 million Internet data centre in Kamloops that will employ 25 local residents, the company announced February 3.
The data centre is one of eight across Canada and is part of Telus' cloud computing service for business.
The Burnaby-based telecom calls the Kamloops data centre "one of the most environmentally sustainable data centres in the world." The building is LEED certified and will use 80% less electricity and 86% less water than a typical data centre. The facilities typically consume huge amounts of electricity in order to cool the computer servers they house.
"The Kamloops Internet Data Centre will be the cornerstone of our national next-generation cloud computing services," said Lloyd Switzer, senior-vice president of network transformation at Telus.
Most data centres are located in the United States, where the business is dominated by Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) and Google (Nasdaq:GOOG). However, recent revelations that the National Security Administration worked with unnamed technology companies to weaken encryption standards has cast doubt on the security of data centres located in the United States.
Cloud computing is estimated to be worth $200 billion globally by 2016.
Telus says it has already secured its first customer, BC Hydro, for the Kamloops data centre.
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