Navajo Nation-owned Company Breaks Ground on Data Center

Native News Network Staff in Native Currents. Discussion »

John Snider, President & CEO

ALBUQUERQUE - NOVA Corporation, a company owned by the Navajo Nation, announced plans to build a 50,000 square foot data center in New Mexico.

NOVA Corporation, a leading information technology company has offices in Window Rock, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Columbia, Maryland.

NOVA Corporation provides high quality and reliable information technology services to state and federal government, the Department of Defense, and commercial companies. NOVA Corporation is dedicated to providing education opportunities for Navajo students seeking to earn a degree in the fields of computer science, information technology, business, communications, and engineering.

“We are thrilled to offer a multi-use data center that can be used for co-location, disaster recovery, and cloud-based initiatives,”

said John Snider, president and chief executive officer of NOVA Corporation. "After looking at several different sites, NOVA Corporation determined that New Mexico was the best place for the data center due a number of factors including its geographic location."

Geographically, Albuquerque provides a stable location without serious risk of natural disasters, ability to utilize ambient air cooling, and reduced risk of targeted threat to the area. It is also located near the Navajo Nation which will allow NOVA to generate jobs and incubate businesses for the Navajo people.

“This project is a light in a dark economy,”

said Randy Asselin, data center project director for NOVA Corporation. "This is an incredible value proposition for national and global organizations that need significant high performance computing space in a tier three data center but would prefer not to invest the Cap Ex. These are companies that are revamping their data strategy and either expanding or consolidating their data center use. NOVA is also an ideal partner for other data center service providers that do not have the capital to transition their current power infrastructure to a high performance one."

NOVA Corporation and Mesa del Sol, a 12,900 acre mixed-use district, finalized the land deal on June 1. The company expects to break ground on the new center in six to twelve months.

posted August 11, 2011 3:10 pm edt