The development of a data center at the US Antarctic base has been stalled with completion now scheduled to be in 2023. The data center is situated in the McMurdo Station research and logistics base in Ross Island, New Zealand. It is about 1,360 kilometers (850 miles) north of the South Pole. Plans of the facility were first revealed in 2018. The 11,000 square foot, two-story building will be housing communications infrastructure, ground station infrastructure, and data center.
Work on the facility started in February 2019, and it was supposed to be completed in late 2020. However, the completion date has been pushed to 2023 due to Covid-19. The National Science Foundation media Officer, Mike England, said the development of the data center in McMurdo has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. He added that NSF hopes to complete the facility before the end of 2023.
