French multinational group Schneider Electric opened a facility in Red Oak this week that will support the booming data center industry in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Data centers, which house computing infrastructure that IT systems require, are vital to various technology-reliant services. D-FW is one of the top data center markets in the country, according to commercial real estate agent CBRE.
Schneider’s new 105,000-square-foot facility will manufacture components for data centers in partnership with Dallas-based Compass Datacenters. Compass has expanded its footprint in D-FW as demand for computing power has seen what Compass CEO Chris Crosby called “unprecedented growth.”
“There’s nothing that you can do that doesn’t touch one of these things,” Crosby said at Thursday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “The centers of economy are our data centers.”
The new Schneider facility sits adjacent to Compass’ Red Oak campus and is part of a $3 billion multiyear data center technology agreement between the companies. The modules Schneider’s facility produces are designed to manage the energy data centers use, a Schneider spokesperson said.
The increase in the number of data centers has faced scrutiny because of the amount of power they demand, which in turn calls for large amounts of water needed for cooling systems. But Crosby said that it’s important to differentiate between types of data centers.
“Not all data centers are the same — just crypto mining — and they can’t be confused together,” he said.
Schneider also has a “strong sustainable practice,” said Vandana Singh, a senior vice president at the company. The new facility is built to last “a very long time.”
“The world of generative artificial intelligence is really deeming the build of the data centers to be the most critical part of the ecosystem, and to power them, you need energy-efficient devices,” Singh said. “And that’s what Schneider does, including industry automation.”
The Schneider-Compass partnership will help bring “more than 200 jobs” to Red Oak, per a news release, something local leaders emphasized in their speeches at Thursday’s event. Schneider is working with Texas State Technical College to recruit and train employees for the facility, according to the release.
Red Oak and Lancaster, both located south of Dallas, have seen interest from multiple data center developers in recent years, including Google. Skybox Datacenters broke ground on a new facility off South Dallas Avenue this week that sits adjacent to an Oncor Electric Delivery location.
Ellis County Judge Todd Little emphasized that Red Oak has plenty of land for those looking to come to the community. The city already has $11 billion worth of data centers permitted, in the works or already built.
“A data center, to the Information Age, is what the railroad was to the Industrial Revolution,” Little said at the event. “It is the future.”
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