Hawaii-based data center firm DRFortress has expanded its Honolulu facility.

The company this week announced the completion of its fourth expansion at the site, adding 220 racks and 500kW of power, available from June 1, and an additional 500kW to be built and installed in the expanded area in early 2024.

“We’re committed to ensuring this expansion – along with our entire facility – meets the customized needs of our customers and is operationally reliable, scalable, and secure for their critical IT systems and applications,” said Fred Rodi, president and founder of DRFortress. “With this expansion, we’re also thrilled to announce that our first anchor tenants will be a large public cloud provider launching a new Edge node in Hawaii and a new international carrier building their presence in Hawaii later this year.”

The expansion also includes three new customer conference rooms with a 38-person training and event space, two multi-purpose customer kiosks, a second loading and delivery area to handle large equipment deliveries, and a dedicated café break area for customers.

The company was founded in 2006 by four ex-Equinix employees, Jeff Brown, Fred Rodi, Rosa White, and Vinh Do. With the backing of several investors, DRFortress gathered around $11m to invest in buying its current data center at 3375 Koapaka Street from Equinix, along with tenants and the Hawaiian Internet exchange.

Shortly after it was bought, the Honolulu data center underwent an expansion in 2007 increasing capacity by around 15 percent. Another expansion was announced in June 2020 and completed in March in 2021; adding 125 cabinets, for a total of 600 across 55,000 square feet (5,110 sqm). This latest expansion was first announced in October 2022.

GI Partners acquired a majority stake in DRFortress in January 2020 for an undisclosed sum.