Data Centers in Tampa

Tampa – Resilient Infrastructure for the Gulf Coast

Executive Summary

Tampa serves as the primary infrastructure anchor for the Florida Gulf Coast, offering a cost-effective and high-performance alternative to Tier 1 markets. This location is essential for enterprises requiring regional disaster recovery and low-latency access to the rapidly growing tech corridor in Central Florida. Choosing Tampa ensures that critical workloads stay online while providing a significant operational edge in one of the fastest-growing business regions in the United States.

Tampa: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: Carrier count: over 15, as of December 2025. With 19 data centers operating in the market, the ecosystem is mature and highly competitive. This density ensures that multi-homed routing and carrier-neutral colocation are standard in most downtown and suburban facilities.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: Over 0, enabling access to 0 cloud regions, as of December 2025. While direct hyperscale nodes do not currently reside within the city limits, Miami serves as the primary gateway for AWS, Google Cloud (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. High-capacity transport circuits are readily available to bridge the distance to South Florida hubs.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): Peering is primarily managed through private interconnections or via regional hubs in Miami, as of December 2025. Local facilities prioritize direct cross-connects to maximize performance for regional traffic and financial services workloads.

Bare Metal: Infrastructure teams can deploy high-performance compute locally through providers such as Hivelocity, as of December 2025. This allows for dedicated hardware performance without the overhead of managing a physical facility.

Power Analysis

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity is approximately $0.06/kWh, as of December 2025. This pricing provides a significant operational advantage, allowing businesses to run compute-intensive workloads at a fraction of the cost found in Northeastern or West Coast markets.

Power Grid Reliability: The local grid is supported by a mix of natural gas and nuclear generation, providing a reliable and diverse energy supply, as of December 2025. Data center corridors are served by well-engineered substations with redundant feeders to mitigate local outages during severe weather events.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers are strategically clustered near the downtown core and the Westshore business district, as of December 2025. This proximity is vital for the region's strong financial services, healthcare, and defense sectors that require immediate access to compute resources.

Regional Market Reach: Tampa is the anchor for the Interstate 4 corridor, providing high-speed digital reach to the entire Central Florida population and serving as a backup site for South Florida operations.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: Florida provides a sales tax exemption for qualifying data center operations and an ad valorem tax exemption for equipment. These incentives significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for long-term deployments and large-scale infrastructure investments, as of December 2025.

Natural Disaster Risk

Tampa carries a High (87.72) risk profile, as of December 2025. While the city faces seasonal weather challenges, local facilities are purpose-built to withstand these conditions through rigorous building standards and elevated infrastructure.

The primary natural hazards include:

• Hurricane
• Lightning
• Riverine Flooding
• Tornado
• Wildfire

Most operators in the region utilize Category 5 hurricane-rated shells and elevated cooling and power infrastructure to ensure continuity during regional events. Other risks are considered minor or secondary for mission-critical operations.