The two giant tech companies better known for software than hard timber are using the material for new data centers.
For massive technology companies like Meta (many of us still call it Facebook) and Microsoft, it’s usually all about bits and bytes but each of these two giants is now using mass timber construction technology on new facilities they are building.
Meta in fact used mass timber to build an administrative building at a South Carolina data center campus last year and now it is extending its use for new construction in Wyoming and Alabama.
“The carbon emissions associated with sustainably harvesting timber, milling it and manufacturing it to create usable materials for industrial application is typically far less than the emissions associated with manufacturing steel and concrete.” Meta wrote in a recent blog posting. “Low carbon materials like mass timber are necessary as we look for alternatives in construction to reach a net-zero future.”
For the Meta administrative building in Aiken County, SC, the company said it received the wood building materials from SmartLam, while DPR led the construction. At its newest projects, Fortis Construction and Mercer Mass Timber will be used in Cheyenne, WY, while construction firm Hensel Phelps and mass timber company Binderholz will handle work at its Montgomery, AL site.
Fewer details are available yet on Microsoft’s use of mass timber although it did announce it will use CLT to build a pair of lower emissions data centers, combining the durable wood with steel and concrete.
Image: Meta
