Data Centers in Austin

Austin – Central Texas Tech & Connectivity Hub

Austin is a primary data center market for companies requiring low-latency access to Central and South Texas. Its strategic location, favorable business climate, and growing tech ecosystem make it an excellent alternative to Dallas for disaster recovery and production workloads targeting a rapidly expanding regional economy.

Austin: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Austin's connectivity is solid, serving as a key hub for Central Texas. The market provides resilient, low-latency connections essential for modern digital infrastructure.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: The Austin market features over 25 unique network providers as of September 2025. Numerous carrier-neutral facilities ensure competitive pricing and diverse routing options for high uptime.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: Austin does not have public direct cloud on-ramps for major hyperscalers as of September 2025. Secure, private network connections to providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure are typically established via dedicated circuits to the major interconnection hub in Dallas.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): The primary exchange is the Austin Internet Exchange (Austin-IX), which facilitates local peering, reducing latency for traffic within the metro area. For broader peering, most networks connect through Dallas.

Bare Metal: Bare metal server options are readily available in Austin. Providers like Hivelocity and Latitude.sh offer dedicated server solutions for workloads requiring direct hardware access without a virtualization layer.

Power Analysis

Austin provides reliable and competitively priced power, supported by Texas's independent and diverse energy grid.

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity rates typically range from $0.07 to $0.09 per kWh as of September 2025. This competitive pricing helps manage the significant operational expense of high-density computing.

Power Grid Reliability: The power grid, managed by ERCOT, is well-engineered around major data center zones with access to redundant substations. While the statewide grid faces periodic stress, infrastructure serving data center corridors is built for high reliability.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Austin's strategic location and business-friendly environment provide significant advantages for data center operators and their customers.

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers are located with easy access to the "Silicon Hills" tech hub, downtown Austin, and the northern suburbs that house major enterprise and technology companies, enabling low-latency application performance.

Regional Market Reach: Austin is ideally positioned to serve the high-growth Texas Triangle, a megaregion that includes Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. It offers an effective base for reaching over 25 million people with minimal delay.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: Texas provides a significant sales and use tax exemption on equipment, software, and electricity purchased for qualified data center projects. This incentive directly lowers the capital and operational costs of establishing and running a facility.

Natural Disaster Risk

Austin has a moderate natural disaster risk profile, with a FEMA National Risk Index score of 43.46 out of 100 as of September 2025. While free from major seismic or coastal threats, businesses must plan for specific climate and weather-related events.

Key risks for the region include drought, heatwaves, hail, and riverine flooding. Other notable risks are severe winter weather, lightning, strong winds, and wildfires. Facility design and operational planning should account for these potential disruptions.