Crunching the numbers on NSA’s new data center

The National Security Agency is planing a $1.5 billion cybersecurity data center at the Camp Williams National Guard base in Utah. This post takes a crack at the numbers and finds the result a bit wanting.

From the link:

For me, the math just doesn’t add up. According to the budget document, the power density will be “appropriate for current state-of-the-art high-performance computing devices and associated hardware architecture.” Yet if you calculate the watts per square foot by dividing the center’s total watts (65MW) by total square feet (1.5 million), you come up with a power density estimate of about 43 watts per square foot. No way that’s “state of the art.”