Guam: The Guam government will construct a Tier IV data center on the island

To enhance Internet quality, the government of Guam intends to construct a solar-powered Tier IV data center on the island. In addition, it intends to construct a new government data center on the University campus. This week, the Office of the Governor revealed the Guam Five-Year Action Plan for the future of high-speed Internet by announcing the facility.

The government stated in the report that it intends to reduce Internet latency in Guam by constructing a "green, Tier IV data center that will serve as a world-class IXP." It is unclear whether the government will pursue Uptime Tier certification. The government hopes to entice CDN providers to local caching of content and services to decrease connections and latency. Additionally, local infrastructure will aid in redundancy.

According to the report, a site has not yet been selected, but it would feature a high elevation and closeness to the ocean, public rights of way, multiple power grid access points, adequate land area to support a 5-10MW solar farm and tech park campus development, and be close to the island-wide terrestrial optic cable. The report suggests that more than $60 million could be invested in the endeavor.

The US Department of Commerce awarded Guam $156 million in BEAD (Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment) funding for Internet infrastructure in June. Guam, which is owned by the United States, is a landing point for more than a dozen current and prospective subsea cables. Multiple cable landing stations are present, but the few data centers on the island are owned by local ISPs or cable companies.