Site & structure
Geotechnical conditions, groundwater, drainage, land use, ecological constraints, and structural requirements, evaluated with the appropriate specialists.
UNDERGROUND DATA-CENTER DEVELOPMENT
A deeper foundation
for digital infrastructure.
Expertise for planning and building underground data centers—with water, energy, local ecosystems, and operating needs considered from feasibility through coordinated delivery.
Discuss your projectTHE TYPE OF DATA CENTER
Below grade.
Planned around
the workload.
Underground spaces for IT equipment, with power, cooling, connectivity, access, and monitoring considered as one facility.
“Underground” describes the physical setting. The workload, capacity, resilience objectives, and operating model are separate decisions. A suitable project may adapt an existing underground space or develop a new below-grade structure.
Modular phasing is one approach to evaluate. Our proprietary modular concept remains R&D, separate from the project-specific feasibility and development services described here.
02 / BELOW GRADEA facility considered in layers.
PLANNING FOCUS
Establish feasibility before form.
Ground conditions, groundwater, drainage, structure, and permitting require project-specific specialist review. A below-grade setting alone does not establish suitability or resilience.
What evidence is needed to establish a viable site?
Markers identify discussion areas within the concept, not engineered system locations.
Power & connectivity
Utility capacity, power availability and cost, distribution, resilience objectives, network routes, and local infrastructure constraints.
Cooling & controls
Cooling matched to the IT equipment, with water demand, energy use, maintainability, monitoring, and operating controls evaluated together.
Access & operations
Equipment movement, service routes, life safety, maintenance, commissioning, and the people who will operate the facility.
REUSE OR PURPOSE-BUILT DEVELOPMENT
Start with the site.
Keep alternatives open.
The setting must support the intended operation. An underground location alone does not establish lower resource use, resilience, or a viable business case.
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Evaluate what already exists.
Assess an existing mine, cavern, bunker, or other underground structure for a defined workload. Groundwater, structural condition, access, utilities, ventilation, and life safety determine which investigations come first.
NEW BELOW-GRADE DEVELOPMENT
Establish feasibility before form.
For a new structure, coordinate site and geotechnical studies, excavation and drainage questions, surface equipment needs, permitting, and delivery phasing with qualified specialists.
COMPARABLE ALTERNATIVES
Test the case against other options.
Compare an underground approach with viable above-ground retrofit, new construction, or alternate hosting. Use the same workload, continuity, resource, lifecycle, and cost assumptions.
Explore above-ground servicesA FEASIBILITY SEQUENCE
- Define the workload: establish demand, growth assumptions, and recovery priorities.
- Investigate the site: assess ground conditions, groundwater, structure, and drainage.
- Check supporting infrastructure: establish power, network, cooling, heat-rejection, and surface-space requirements.
- Review safe access: consider equipment movement, ventilation, maintenance, and life safety with specialists.
- Set operating conditions: define responsibilities, acceptance evidence, and a phased decision to advance, investigate, or defer.
CONFIGURATIONS TO EVALUATE
The use case
shapes the facility.
These are applications to assess against a project’s site and technical brief. Each calls for a different balance of capacity, connectivity, power, and cooling.
Enterprise & campus
A facility around your operations.
Dedicated infrastructure for an organization’s digital operations, with capacity and interfaces shaped around its business or campus requirements.
STARTING POINT
Workload ownership, campus interfaces, and continuity needs.
Edge & regional
Capacity close to a defined need.
Infrastructure planned for a service area, connectivity requirement, or local workload. Location follows the network and the demand it needs to serve.
STARTING POINT
Network routes, latency requirements, and local demand.
High-density computing
Plan the systems around the workload.
Facilities for demanding workloads, including AI and high-performance computing, with power and cooling requirements established through the technical brief.
STARTING POINT
Equipment density, thermal approach, and power availability.
WHERE OUR EXPERTISE FITS
From the brief
to build readiness.
Underground projects cross disciplines. We connect the requirements, the specialists, and the decisions needed to move the work forward.
Define
Establish the project brief.Workloads, capacity objectives, operating needs, site constraints, utilities, and connectivity.
Coordinate
Make the systems work together.Align facility requirements, specialist scopes, technology interfaces, and design dependencies.
Plan the build
Turn the scope into a delivery path.Construction interfaces, procurement dependencies, phasing, responsibilities, and decision points.
Prepare
Plan for life in operation.Commissioning requirements, documentation, maintainability, operating procedures, and handover.
A SCOPED ENGAGEMENT
- A project brief with workload, capacity, and operating objectives.
- A register of site constraints, feasibility questions, and required investigations.
- Coordinated scopes and interfaces for qualified design, engineering, and construction specialists.
- A comparison of reuse, new below-grade development, and appropriate surface alternatives.
- A phased delivery and readiness roadmap with decision points and handover requirements.
Scope, specialist qualifications, and delivery responsibilities are agreed for each engagement. Project-specific engineering, permitting, construction, and commissioning are coordinated with the qualified professionals and delivery parties engaged for the work.
BEFORE THE FIRST CONVERSATION
Start with the
right questions.
You do not need every answer to begin. A clear starting point helps us define the next useful step.
Do we need to select a capacity first?
Share your expected workloads, growth assumptions, and operating requirements. Capacity and phasing can then be evaluated with the site, power, and cooling constraints.
What makes a site suitable?
Ground conditions, groundwater, utility availability, network connectivity, access, permitting, and life-safety requirements all need specialist review. Being below ground alone does not establish feasibility or resilience.
Is the illustration a completed facility?
It illustrates Eco TerraVault’s modular underground research direction. Project-specific engineering, capacity, and performance must be developed and validated separately. Explore the research program ↗
What should we share to get started?
A short description of the intended use, project stage, general location, timing, and known constraints. Detailed facility drawings or sensitive system information can follow an agreed sharing process.
START A CONVERSATION
Bring your underground project into focus.
Share your infrastructure priorities or interest in collaborating.