{"id":350705,"date":"2025-11-02T16:44:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T16:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/350705\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T16:44:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T16:44:42","slug":"dallas-poised-to-be-the-nations-leading-location-for-data-center-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/350705\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas poised to be the nation\u2019s leading location for data center capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"

DataBank<\/a> CEO Raul Martynek is passionate about the internet, and said he loves telling people how it works.<\/p>\n

Like, seriously. Colorful posters line the walls of his downtown Dallas offices, with visualizations and maps of the \u201cwhole internet,\u201d submarine cables, the global internet and Africa telecommunications.<\/p>\n

Born in Spain and raised in New York, Martynek\u2019s career has taken him to places throughout the world. He most recently moved to Dallas in 2017, when he joined DataBank.<\/p>\n

At the time, he said the \u201csmall\u201d company had six data centers in three markets. They\u2019ve since exploded to 65 across more than two dozen markets. In North Texas, the company has hubs<\/a> in Dallas, Richardson, Plano <\/a>and Red Oak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Business Briefing<\/p>\n

Become a business insider with the latest news.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cDallas \u2014 even before the AI boom \u2014 was a top five data center market in the U.S.,” Martynek said. \u201cAnd with some of the other markets reaching some constraints around land, around power, like in Northern Virginia, Dallas is poised to continue to grow. Could it even challenge Ashburn in a couple years to be the dominant location for data center capacity here in the U.S.?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said if current course and speed continue, he thinks it will.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Nehemiah<\/p>\n

Martynek recently gave The Dallas Morning News a tour of DataBank\u2019s office and data center in the historic former Federal Reserve Bank building<\/a> on Akard Street, and chatted about the future of the industry. Here are the highlights, edited for length and clarity:<\/p>\n

Do you feel like your background prepared you to lead DataBank?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cI\u2019ve been in the internet infrastructure space since the advent of the commercial internet. When I got in in the mid \u201990s, I used to walk around Manhattan convincing people they needed internet and being told, \u2018No,\u2019 right? So, I\u2019ve seen the evolution of this kind of dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve run businesses in telecom and fiber, cell towers, cloud computing, negotiated submarine cable terminations in Sub-Saharan Africa. I\u2019ve had a wonderful set of experiences that when I got here to DataBank, I felt like I was very well prepared to tackle what was here and help build a business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DataBank<\/p>\n

DataBank CEO Raul Martynek speaks with The Dallas Morning News during an interview at the Databank offices, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Dallas.<\/p>\n

El\u00edas Valverde II \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n

Do you remember the first time you heard about a data center?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cIt would have been in the in the late \u201990s. You\u2019re sitting in a building that would be considered first generation data center. So, even in the \u201980s and \u201990s, there were data centers but for the most part, they were owned by corporates. The IBMs of the world, back then, the GEs [General Electric] of the world had data processing so they had these data processing locations. There wasn\u2019t third-party data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the mid \u201990s, when you walked into an office, every office had a data center. It was called a computer closet. People would buy computer equipment, storage, servers, networking and find some space in their office and install it there. That was because you had to get access through a local area network in your office because there was no internet to be able to access it from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the internet emerged, people started to realize, wait a minute, we can \u2018free\u2019 this data from that physical location, and we can centralize it because there, we can protect it better from a security perspective, we can build more scale in terms of a building that can support it, we can cool it, we can power it, all that stuff. There was this kind of migration of this infrastructure out of these millions of locations in offices and in homes into the cloud. That\u2019s what really started data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve known about data centers for a long time, but it seems like everyone else is just now paying attention to them. Did that happen in a wave, all at once?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cFrom a common knowledge perspective, it was the COVID pandemic [Martynek said this is when digital infrastructure rose to the level of importance as other traditional infrastructure.] and the advent of ChatGPT that made people aware of data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the adoption of that technology consumes a lot of data center space and power, and obviously has created just a crazy market. Now, data centers are in everyone\u2019s vernacular.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in an Uber this morning, coming from New York, and the Uber driver asked me what I do for work and I said, \u2018I\u2019m in technology.\u2019 He goes, \u2018What type of technology?\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, data centers.\u2019 He goes, \u2018Oh, hey. Do you think I should buy into some of these power plants that are starting to support data centers?\u2019 I\u2019m like, whoa. When the Uber guy knows about the trends in data centers and the factors, you could say it\u2019s hit mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Various<\/p>\n

Various different fiber optic cables are seen entering into the DataBank data center, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Dallas.<\/p>\n

El\u00edas Valverde II \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n

Kind of on the same note, it seems like a lot of people believe AI is what\u2019s driving the data center boom. AI is definitely a large part of it, but there are other factors, right?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cYes, ChatGPT and AI get all the news, but I like to reduce it to a much more fundamental kind of dynamic. If you think about what a data center really is, it\u2019s kind of the foundation for technology adoption, broadly speaking. And if you look at humans, I think we\u2019re addicted to technology. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that there are a limitless number of usages and applications that technology can be applied to. We use technology now to entertain ourselves \u2014 streaming, to educate ourselves, to work, to perform every type of interaction we have, whether it be banking or news or communication. Long term, there\u2019s no limit to what humans are going to figure out how to use technology and as technology gets adopted, it needs to go into a data center.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yes, AI is out there as the new technology trend that\u2019s driving data center demand but we have 2,500 customers … No doubt, AI is kind of the newest trend, and the one that\u2019s showing the greatest incremental adoption but there\u2019s plenty more underneath the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are there worries that we\u2019re getting built out to capacity, especially in the near future? Or are we going to continue to grow?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cThere was a great article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about the word \u2018bubble.\u2019 They looked at the \u2018dot-com\u2019 era, at the mentions of the word \u2018bubble,\u2019<\/a> and how they kind of peaked up for several years. The gist of the article was just like the \u2018dot-com\u2019 era, people were talking about a bubble back then, and then something actually happened. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. I mean, I really believe in the long-term viability of this technology, but I\u2019ve also been around long enough to know that people can get overexcited about how technology will get adopted. One of my favorite technology quotes is, \u2018People tend to overestimate technology\u2019s impact in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI think AI is probably following that trajectory right now in this particular moment, but I think if you look out 10 years, 15 years, there\u2019ll be no doubt in my mind that this technology will be as transformative as the internet was. If you think about the world in 1995, we used to drive around with paper maps. We used to go to the library to look up things. We used to have to go to the office because you couldn\u2019t work from home. The internet has already changed the way we live our lives, I see no reason why AI is not going to do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there anything you wish more people knew about what you do and your operations at DataBank?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martynek:<\/b> \u201cPart of what\u2019s happening with data centers, which is usual with any type of new trend, are people who are critical of data centers, saying we\u2019re consuming all the power, using too much water, contributing to climate change. Ultimately, what\u2019s paradoxical is that the expansion of data centers is driven by our own behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you flip on TikTok and keep scrolling for two hours, well, guess what? You\u2019re using data center infrastructure. When you get hundreds of emails per day that are spam, and then you just leave them in your inbox instead of permanently deleting them. Well, guess what? Those are stored somewhere, so that somewhere is using power that\u2019s in the data center.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe, like any resource, you want to be efficient and considerate and understand its impacts long term. I think what I would want people to appreciate is that it\u2019s really our collective behavior that\u2019s driving the demand for data centers, not the tech companies, not the data center companies, it\u2019s really us as humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DataBank CEO Raul Martynek is passionate about the internet, and said he loves telling people how it works.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":350706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,44363,5495,23489,92195,14055,56753,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-350705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-ellis-county","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-evergreen-monthly","13":"tag-evergreen-yearly","14":"tag-future-of-north-texas","15":"tag-future-of-north-texas-infrastructure","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115481114955171459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}