By Nicholette Marbley
Do you use Facebook, Google, or Amazon? Over 98% of the US population uses all 3. Technology in this day and age is critical. Data is worth more than oil due to the substantial financial investment in personal and public information. If your social security number gets stolen, your life could be in serious trouble. If a company’s new product line is leaked, that’s a massive loss in sales and competitive edge; if our government’s cybersecurity gets hacked, the whole country could be in danger.
Security breaches on data are not taken lightly; Mark Zuckerberg was in hot water over a vast Facebook data breach in 2018. The social media streaming service Tik Tok and texting app We Chat will be no more starting September 20th. Donald Trump has made it very clear that he believes that China’s access to American citizen’s data is a vast national threat to the US and will eliminate the service from the US if ownership is not passed over to a US-based company. Let’s take a look at Amazon, Google, and Facebook and their strategic placing in Ohio.
Amazon has 12 data centers in Ohio. The closest one being New Albany(I know many of you were thinking Twinsburg. That’s not a data center. It’s a distribution center). Facebook has also made New Albany it’s data center home. The 750 million dollar building is 40% more efficient than the average center in electrical energy and 80% more efficient in water usage. Google’s 600 million dollar center is the 3rd major tech giant in Ohio to choose New Albany as their data center Ohio home.
So why Ohio and specifically why Central Ohio? Ohio is cost-efficient, has a steady economy, and we are home to some of the best colleges with excellent tech programs in the US, making it the perfect place to enhance a thriving business. These 3 companies certainly won’t be the last major companies to make Ohio ones of their many homes. Who knows, 30 years down the line, we might be the next Silicon Valley.
