A number of data center providers and equipment makers have been granted US government loans to support them during the Covid-19 pandemic, government documents show.

H5, T5, and GIGA Data Centers were among the companies that received loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, developed to help US companies retain staff during the lockdown designed to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Who took a PPP loan?

The companies join hundreds of thousands of others in every business sector that took out PPP loans as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act, designed to tide organizations over during lockdown, and avoid large numbers of redundancies. It is not an indication of the business being at risk. Other companies include Kanye West's Yeezy fashion brand, Jared Kushner's family business, restaurant chains, rock bands and (ironically) the Ayn Rand Institute.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Small Business Administration has released a spreadsheet which lists the more than 600,000 companies that received PPP loans worth more than $150k.

We went through it, and found several data center firms, as well as businesses that supply them. The spreadsheet gives the size range of the loans, along with indications of the purposes they are being used for.

H5 Data Centers received a loan between $1m and $2m to help retain 64 jobs, while subsidiary H5 Data Centers - Quincy took out another $150,000-$350,000 loan for 25 jobs. Last year, the data center company became the first to test the cooling system of Forced Physics. The startup also took a PPP loan, for between $150,000-$350,000 - for 12 jobs.

T5 Data Centers took out between $5m-$10m, but did not disclose the number of jobs retained. To save four jobs, Giga Data Centers took out $150,000-$350,000, while Lifeline Data Centers borrowed a similar amount, saying it would keep 30 jobs.

Hurricane Electric, a global Internet service provider that also offers colocation services, received between $1m and $2m to support 87 jobs.

McAllen Data Center, which operates three facilities along the US-Mexico border, took $150,000-350,000 for 20 jobs. Elsewhere down south, Houston, Texas-based cloud services and colocation company Quasar Data Center took $150,000-350,000 for 22 jobs and the Tonaquint Data Center company, which operates a single facility in Utah, received $150,000-$350,000 for 15 jobs. Lancium, a Texas-based startup that wants to deploy small HPC systems at wind farms, brought in $150,000-$350,000 for 20 jobs.

Small colocation company Alchemy Data Centers took $350,000-$1m for 32 jobs, while colocation company Data Canopy took out $150,000-$350,000 for eight jobs.

High-density colocation company ScaleMatrix took out two $350,000-$1m loans, for 26 and 51 jobs respectively, and PSSC Labs - which recently won an HPC contract with the Space Force -received $350,000-$1m for 19 jobs.

Elsewhere, colocation provider 5Nines tooks out $150,000-$350,000 for 23 jobs, hybrid cloud and modernization company PTS Data Centers received $350,000-$1m for 26 jobs, and data center and managed services provider Green House Data took out a $1m-$2m loan for 101 jobs.

Global data center firm HostDime borrowed between $1m and $2m for 80 jobs. In February the company said that it was behind schedule on its Orlando data center, but that it expected it to open this year.

US Signal, which opened a Michigan data center in March, took out between $2m and $5m for 193 jobs.

Edge computing company Axellio received $350,000-$1m for zero jobs retained. Also retaining zero jobs was Carter Validus Holdings Management, a REIT that includes data center assets, which received $1-$2m.

Technology solutions provider Sterling Data Center (which operates under the name BlueBridge Networks) received between $150,000 and $350,000 for 15 jobs, and hosting provider Atlantic.net, which operates out of seven locations, took out $350,000-$1m for an unspecified number of jobs.

Managed services providers also turned to PPP loans, including Global Data Systems, which borrowed between $2m and $5m for 106 jobs. Regional managed IT services provider Midwest Data Center loaned between $150,000 and $350,000 to retain 54 jobs.

Federal IT and managed services company Data Computer Corporation of America received $2m-$5m for 262 jobs. Also focused on federal contracts, the government hosting company Phoenix Data Corporation took out a $350,000-$1m loan for 62 jobs.

Resellers got in on the action, too. Equipment reseller Data Center Warehouse received $150,000-$350,000 for 14 jobs, while Texas-based Data Center Equipment & Support LLC took out the same amount for 10 jobs, and Chesapeake Mission Critical saved 15 jobs.

Power and cooling equipment reseller Data Center Resources (misspelled as Resoures in the document), took $150,000-$350,000 for 11 jobs, while Minnesota-based equipment reseller Data Center System Inc took out between $350,000-$1m for 13 jobs.

Also for $350,000-$1m, equipment reseller Accutech Data retained 32 jobs, while Data Hardware Depot retained 43 jobs within the same loan bracket.

Then comes consultancies. The small consultancy SJN Data Center received $2m-$5m for 165 jobs, while military-focused IT consultancy i3Tech received between $150,000 and $350,000 for 13 jobs.

Consulting and engineering services company EYP Mission Critical Facilities received $1m-$2m for 38 jobs, and data center consultancy TelaData received $350,000-$1m for 27 jobs.

Consultancy and digital transformation company United Data Technologies received $2m-5m for 125 jobs.

Industry analyst, search provider, and market guide DatacenterHawk received $150,000-$350,000 for 10 jobs.

The Uptime Institute, best known for its data center Tier rating, took out a $350,000-$1m loan for 35 jobs.

Salute Inc, which helps find veterans jobs in the data center industry, received between $1m and $2m for 198 jobs. Virtual Power Systems loaned $350,000-$1m for 20 jobs.

Moving into the data center itself, Mission Critical Facilities International, which designs and installs data center power and cooling infrastructure, loaned $350,000-$1m for 28 jobs. Regional fiber and cabling installer Rocky Mountain Telecom & Data received between $150,000 and $350,000 for 20 jobs.

ZincFive, which recently rolled out Nickel-Zinc UPS battery cabinets for the data center, received $350,000-$1m for 43 jobs. Rival Nickel-Zinc battery company ZAF Energy Systems borrowed the same amount, but for 40 jobs.

NVMe-over-fabrics array startup Pavilion Data Systems, which went through several rounds of layoffs in 2018, received $1-2m for 46 jobs. The US branch of Taiwanese memory and storage manufacturer ADATA received $350,000-$1m for 47 jobs.

All-flash storage system company HoneycombData received $350,000-$1m for 19 jobs, and the aptly-named Data Storage Corporation loaned $350,000-$1m for zero jobs.

Cooling company Motivair, which is set to cool the US government's three upcoming exascale systems, took out a $350,000-$1m loan for 29 jobs.

Data center cooling company KyotoCooling, known for its KyotoWheel, took out $350,000-$1m for 81 jobs. Green Revolution Cooling, the immersion company that recently added former Schneider EVP Dave Johnson to its board of directors, borrowed $350,000-$1m for 24 jobs.