Intel spending $700M for new Hillsboro-area facility

HILLSBORO, Ore. (KOIN) —Intel announced its investing hundreds of millions of dollars to advance data center sustainability.

According to the announcement, the new $700 million mega lab and the industry’s first open intellectual property immersion liquid cooling solution will focus on innovative energy-efficient solutions. The 200,000-square-foot research and development lab would be focused on innovative data center technologies and addressing areas such as heating, cooling and water usage.

With the initial design proof of concept initiated in Taiwan, Intel said it aims to simplify and accelerate the implementation of immersion liquid cooling solutions throughout the ecosystem globally.

“Intel’s dedication to its global partnerships is evident with these announcements today,” said Sandra L. Rivera, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the data center and AI group on May 19. “The future of the data center and data center design is based on innovative and sustainable technologies and practices, and I’m proud of the work we’re doing every day to help make a sustainable future a reality.”

These two investments represent Intel’s continued efforts to bring together the technology ecosystem to address critical global environmental issues, added the announcement.

According to Intel, the new lab will be focused on areas such as immersion cooling, water usage effectiveness and heat recapture and reuse. Construction on the lab will begin this year at the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, with opening expected in late 2023.

The lab will also host an advanced technology showcase for customers and partners to observe and test Intel products in a variety of data center environments in the lab. This is an effort by Intel to accelerate the adoption of these new technologies throughout the ecosystem.

“The industry’s first open IP data center immersion liquid cooling solution and reference design is an open, easy-to-deploy and easily scalable total cooling solution. It will allow partners to accelerate the introduction of Intel solutions in response to the trend of increasing data center power density to enhance operational efficiency,” explained Intel. “The initial solution and design proof of concept will be completed in partnership with Intel Taiwan and across the Taiwanese ecosystem in a phased approach, with plans to scale out globally. Intel will continue to work with partners to develop and validate related solutions.”

The company said this effort is important because the data centers represent approximately 1% of the global electricity demand and account for about 0.3% of global carbon emissions.

Investing in standardizing cooling technologies and R&D for future innovations strengthens Intel’s commitment to more sustainable technology solutions, noted the announcement.

“Research shows that immersion cooling with energy reuse could reduce carbon emissions by 45% compared to traditional data center usage,” Intel said. “These efforts build on Intel’s previously announced commitment to working with customers and industry partners to create more sustainable technology solutions. The research and development for these emerging technologies have the power to fundamentally change the way data centers are built and operated.”