​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Digital Port​​​

Welcome to the only transatlantic cable landing location in the center of the East Coast. ​​

The Virginia Beach MSA has long been known for two world-class assets: the largest military community in the US and the Port of Virginia, a key gateway for global commerce. With 5​0-foot channels, six marine terminals, and the largest container cranes in the world, the Port of Virginia connects global businesses to their customers anywhere. Virginia Beach is now a digital port, shipping data at the highest speed possible around the world and laying the infrastructure to handle the influx​ of digital traffic.

Key Developments:

  • Telxius completed construction of a 24,000-square-foot cable landing station
  • Globalinx Data Centers is developing 10,750 sf carrier-neutral data center campus
  • ​Corporate Landing Business park received Dominion Energy-certified data center status
  • The City of Virginia Beach reduced tax rates for data center equipment ​
  • ACA International announced pla​ns to develop a 130,000-square-foot data center.​
  • ACA announced plans​ to land the third high speed subsea cable in Virginia Beach from South Africa. ​
  • PointOne, an international hyperscale data center developer, announced plans​ to invest $80 million.


 ​Transoceanic Fiber Cables
​Transoceanic Fiber Cables to Connect North America to Brazil and Europe from Virginia Beach​​

MAREA and BRUSA, the newest and fastest ultra-high speed transatlantic fiber optic telecommunication cables in the world, connect Virginia Beach to Brazil and Europe through a new 24,000-sf cable landing station operated by Telxius, the infrastructure arm of a Spanish telecom company: Telefónica. ​​

The first one MAREA, owned by Microsoft and Facebook, and operated by Telxius, brought the first ultra-high-speed ​200 ​terabit fiber optic cable from Bilbao, Spain to Corporate Landing. BRUSA, owned and operated by Telxius​, brought the second cable (138 Tbps) ​from Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza( ​Brazil) to Virginia Beach in ​ 2018. View map ​of the Virginia Beach cables. 

​​Stretching 4,000 miles (6,600 km) across from Virginia Beach to Bilbao, Marea is capable of transferring data at a staggering 200 terabits per second. That’s more than 16 million times faster than the average home internet connection​, making it capable of streaming 71 million high-definition videos simultaneously.

ACA International, LLC, which recently announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters to Virginia Beach, has announced a partnership with South Atlantic Express International Ltd. (SAEx) to land the third high speed subsea cable in Virginia Beach. ACA will be the landing party and neutral co-location service provider for the main trunk of the SAEx cable.

The 72 terabit per second bandwidth SAEx cable will be the only system connecting South Africa directly to the U.S. It will combine with a partner system from Fortaleza, Brazil to offer a truly diverse transatlantic network, with a planned second phase from South Africa to Asia.

​Once completed, ​the Globalinx Carrier Hotel  in Corporate Landing will provide high capacity, relia​ble connectivity options to carriers, data center and colocation facility operators.​


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 Data Centers
​​Data C​enter​ Advantages

Virginia Beach is plugged in and ready to go with a world-class telecommunications system complete with a data center and development park with available Dominion Energy-certified data center sites, low tax rates for data centers, ​and available fiber access hubs, which makes communicating globally easy and reliable.​​

The City of Virginia Beach has reduced the tax rate for data center equipment to solidify its business-friendly approach to this growing industry sector. The new tax rate decreases the tax on computers and peripherals used in data centers to $0.40 per $100 of assessed value, with a depreciation schedule of 40 percent of original cost. This decrease is one of many new initiatives Virginia Beach is embracing to welcome data centers to the city. 

​​Available for data centers that invest $150 million or more, hire 50 or more employees, pay at least 1.5 times the average local wage, and enter into an MOU with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Colocation facilities can aggregate the capital investment and new job requirements among the data center owner and tenants. These exemptions extend to qualified data center equipment, including servers, routers, generators, chillers and other enabling hardware.


​​The city's infrastructure and economic potential have been ranked in the top 10 for mid-sized cities in the Western ​​Hemisphere. 

​​In addition to being the newest cable landing site destination on the East Coast, Virginia Beach boasts a robust broadband infrastructure that is being upgraded to support the next generation of telecommunication systems. A regional backbone will soon connect the area's major government and education facilities and enable commercial and residential access to ultra-high speed networks. 

Globalinx Data Center Campus/Colocation Center ​​

Globalinx Data Centers plans to open a 10,750 sf carrier-neutral colocation center as Phase I of their planned 150,000 sf data center campus in Virginia Beach. Located in Corporate Landing Business Park at 1632 Corporate Landing Parkway, The facility offers direct access to multiple subsea cable systems and terrestrial networks, and has access to more than 30MWs of scalable critical power provided by Dominion Energy through two independent substations. Corporate Landing is a certified data center site by Dominion Energy.

By building a carrier-neutral colocation facility in Corporate Landing Park, Globalinx is providing a platform essential for facilitating interconnections between subsea capacity and terrestrial fiber networks. This further advances our goal of making Virginia Beach a truly 'Digital Port' city, and will help attract additional subsea projects to Virginia Beach for true diversity from the subsea cable systems in the New York-New Jersey region.

Once completed, the Globalinx Data Center Virginia Beach campus will provide high-capacity space for network carriers, subsea operators, enterprises and hyperscale providers to collocate their networking equipment in a secure location and interconnect in the building's "Meet-me-Room."​

 Resources
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