Data Centers in Cleveland

Cleveland – High-Resiliency Hub for Great Lakes Enterprise

Cleveland serves as a strategic low-latency bridge for enterprises targeting the manufacturing and healthcare giants of the Great Lakes region. This market is a premier choice for disaster recovery and secondary production sites, offering an exceptionally stable environment for critical workloads. Deploying here ensures a balance of competitive operational costs and reliable data sovereignty.

Cleveland: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: The market features over 16 providers as of December 2025. You will find a healthy mix of local and national carriers, ensuring competitive pricing for transit and transport requirements. Expect a rounded range of 15–20 carriers in major downtown facilities.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: There are 0 direct cloud on-ramps in the immediate metro area as of December 2025. Most deployments manage cloud access via private line extensions or high-capacity waves to reach major hubs in Chicago. Chicago remains the primary gateway for AWS, Google Cloud (GCP), and Microsoft Azure.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): Peering is primarily handled via the Ohio IX. This facilitates local traffic exchange to reduce latency and transit costs. For broader peering, participants connect back to major national exchanges in Chicago or Ashburn.

Bare Metal: High-performance dedicated hardware is available for specific workloads. Providers such as ColoCrossing offer local bare metal options to support applications requiring direct hardware control without the overhead of virtualization.

Power Analysis

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity in Cleveland is priced at approximately $0.07/kWh, as of December 2025. This cost structure provides a significant operational advantage compared to East Coast markets. Low costs allow for predictable expenses for high-density deployments.

Power Grid Reliability: The local grid is supported by a diversified generation mix, including natural gas and nuclear power. Infrastructure in major data center corridors is well-engineered with multi-substation support to minimize the risk of outages. The grid is stable enough that your biggest worry will be lake effect snow, not the lights flickering.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers here are positioned to serve the downtown financial district and the University Circle medical hub. Close proximity to these centers is vital for low-latency healthcare imaging and financial transaction processing.

Regional Market Reach: Cleveland serves as a strategic bridge between Chicago and New York. It effectively covers the entire Great Lakes region and much of the Ohio River Valley, reaching millions of users within a sub-10ms round-trip time.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: Ohio offers a favorable climate for major infrastructure projects through negotiated tax breaks. These incentives reduce the total cost of ownership by offsetting a significant portion of the initial capital investment. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority has a history of awarding these credits to major technology deployments.

Natural Disaster Risk

Cleveland maintains a Low risk profile with a FEMA NRI score of 19.5, as of December 2025. The region is historically stable, making it a preferred site for resilient secondary infrastructure.

• Winter Weather: Occasional heavy snow and ice require specific facility management protocols.
• Tornadoes: Risk is present but significantly lower than in the central Great Plains.
• Hail: Frequent during spring months, though rarely impactful to hardened facilities.
• Lightning: Common during summer months; all major sites utilize comprehensive grounding systems.
• River Flooding: Risks are localized and generally avoided by primary data center clusters.
• Strong Wind: Seasonal storms are a known factor but are managed by standard building codes.