Data Centers in Orange County

Orange County – Southern California's Resilient Hub

Executive Summary

Orange County is a strategic colocation market for businesses requiring low-latency access to the dense Southern California consumer and enterprise base without the higher costs of downtown Los Angeles. Its robust infrastructure offers a compelling alternative for production workloads and disaster recovery, ensuring high-speed connectivity throughout the region. This market is ideal for media, technology, and financial services firms whose revenue depends on uninterrupted service delivery.

Orange County: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: Orange County facilities provide access to over 13 unique network providers, as of September 2025. While not as dense as downtown Los Angeles, the market offers strong carrier-neutral options, ensuring competitive pricing and redundant connectivity paths.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: There are no dedicated public cloud on-ramps located directly within Orange County, as of September 2025. However, facilities provide low-latency private network extensions (PNI) and wave services to the primary cloud exchange points in the Los Angeles area, enabling secure access to all major cloud providers.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): Most peering occurs through private connections or via the rich IXP ecosystem in Los Angeles. This provides efficient traffic exchange and direct routes to major content and application providers on the West Coast.

Bare Metal: Bare metal server options are readily available from providers in the region. Global providers like Hivelocity and phoenixNAP can service deployments in Southern California, offering dedicated compute for performance-sensitive applications.

Power Analysis

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity rates are estimated between $0.18 and $0.22 per kWh, as of September 2025. These costs reflect California's complex energy market but are necessary for accessing this critical economic region. The state's power mix includes approximately 45% fossil fuels, 40% renewables, and 8% nuclear power.

Power Grid Reliability: The power grid supporting Orange County's data centers is well-engineered for high availability. Facilities typically source power from multiple substations and deploy extensive on-site generation and battery backup systems to ensure uptime during grid events.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers in Orange County are strategically located to serve the area's thriving technology, healthcare, and financial services industries. Their location provides low-latency connectivity to business hubs in Irvine, Newport Beach, and Santa Ana, as well as the greater Southern California region.

Regional Market Reach: The market provides excellent reach to over 20 million people across Southern California. It serves as a vital edge location for content delivery, gaming, and cloud services targeting one of the largest economic regions in the United States.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: California offers several tax incentive programs that can benefit data center operators and tenants. These programs primarily focus on energy efficiency rebates and sales tax exemptions for specific equipment purchases, helping to reduce both capital and operational expenditures.

Natural Disaster Risk

Orange County has a High natural disaster risk profile, with a FEMA National Risk Index score of 89.02 out of 100, as of September 2025. The primary threats are environmental and geological, requiring data centers in the area to be engineered with advanced mitigation strategies. Key risks for consideration include:

• Earthquake
• Wildfire
• Drought
• Heatwave
• Landslide
• Riverine Flooding
• Avalanche (regionally)