To break down the digital divide, Cordoba Electric Cooperative (CEC) announced last week that it has partnered with cloud computing service provider Greensparc to launch an entirely new data center.
This spring, Greensparc installed this data center at the Humpback Creek Hydropower Facility. This infrastructure is powered by hydroelectric power plants and is therefore 100% renewable.
Last week, Greensparc's CEO and head of product visited the Cordoba site to ensure everything was running smoothly. Although currently in the testing phase, Greensparc CEO and co-founder Sam Enoka said the data center will take two to three weeks to become operational as a commercial asset and is expected to be up and running by summer. .
“For those who want to participate or want to participate in the digital economy that we live in today…it gives us a stepping stone,” Enoka said. “To ensure that children in Silicon Valley and Seattle have equal access to such opportunities. Through our journey, we have learned that this is just as important, if not more important, than the purpose of providing opportunities. I learned.”
Clay Coplin, CEO of CEC, said the new data center will allow local businesses to expand their services, health care and education services and expand their technology resources, while also providing support for students and workers in Cordova. He said that it will be possible to acquire cloud computing skills. He described the potential of this collaboration as “transformative.”
“Greensparc has elevated Cordoba from a remote community at risk of being left behind by next-generation technology to one that is at the forefront at the intersection of sustainable energy, high-speed communications, and innovative cloud computing. Greensparc 's computing infrastructure is not an advancement; it's a transformation,'' Coplin said.
CEC will be the data center's first customer. Coplin said relying on local servers improves security, reliability and self-sufficiency.
Coplin said CEC's computing services will be on one local server. is a game changer. Instead of connecting to servers in Atlanta, Virginia, or Iowa, you can now connect directly to Greensparc. Cloud refers to on-demand computing systems, specifically data storage and computing power.
Coplin said one of the possibilities for these local servers is digital sovereignty for regional tribes and villages like Eiyak Indian Village to host Indigenous knowledge and languages on servers located on their traditional lands. He said that.
Enoka said GreenSpark looks forward to training and hiring local workers from the Cordoba community for this data center to create new job opportunities and strengthen the local workforce. He said there was.
Greensparc is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider. This means that computing resources such as storage, networking, servers, and virtualization are provided over the Internet.
Previously, CEC applications had to run at the nearest cloud hub in Seattle, which was more than 1,200 miles away. The new data center will enable CEC and other Cordova entities to run specialized applications locally and host data in their own communities. And it goes beyond Cordoba. Enoka said he is already thinking about how the servers can support businesses and organizations in Valdez.
Remote communities like Cordova tend to rely on data centers hundreds of miles away, raising potential concerns about service interruptions due to inclement weather and other environmental factors. With more local data centers, this problem becomes less of a problem. Coplin said GreenSpark has given CEC and Cordova an opportunity to embrace the future.
It typically takes years and millions of dollars to get a data center up and running. But Greensparc says their design allows for a small footprint, low cost, and fast infrastructure implementation while ensuring resiliency under Alaska's harsh conditions.
In the event of an emergency, the data center will rely on a backup hydropower system that is smaller than the current plant, Enoka explained. This backup system charges a battery that can be used if the power plant goes offline for any reason.
Data centers are typically criticized for their negative environmental impact (due to the greenhouse gas emissions required to run them and the consumption of several gallons of water per day to cool them). However, this new data center will be powered and cooled by CEC's existing hydroelectric power plant. Excess heat from the system is used to heat the facility, further increasing the energy efficiency of the CEC. Koplin explained that CEC's hydroelectric power plant already has a gallon of cold water at its disposal, which he said could be used to cool the server infrastructure in the data center.
“Edge communities like Cordova are at the forefront of unprecedented ecological change, with far-reaching social and economic impacts on residents,” said Tommy Sheridan, associate director of the Alaska Blue Economy Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “We are giving the same amount of money,” he said. “GreenSpark’s innovative technology will unlock the many potential for the development and diversification of Córdoba’s blue economy in ways that can be learned from and emulated from coastal Alaska and other regions.”
Enoka knows firsthand the pain of being on the wrong side of the digital divide. He grew up in the North Pole and attended Ben Eielson Junior/Senior School. He said he felt culturally and socially inferior to his classmates and friends because he did not have access to the same technology. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and currently serves on the board of directors of UAF's Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP).
Enoka and Coplin both hope the new data center will help Cordovan become more competitive in an increasingly technology-based economy.
Enoka told GreenSpark that bridging the digital divide requires working together by going to communities in need of support, placing assets in edge communities, and training and hiring staff to handle these assets. said.
“Everywhere you go, there is a dire need for technology,” Enoka said of how bridging the digital divide can also improve economic diversity.
Enoka said they are still in the brainstorming stages of how this technology can be leveraged by organizations across Cordoba, but are excited about the possibilities. He said GreenSpark and CEC are “blazing a path in uncharted territory, but we are optimistic.”