Microsoft drops $1.1B to grow its data center footprint in Iowa

Microsoft will soon harvest a lot more corn — err, servers — in Iowa.

The tech giant is investing in data center infrastructure in West Des Moines, miles away from an existing company data center, Iowa public officials announced today.

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The company has been gradually improving the feature set and lowering prices of its Azure public cloud service. Such moves could attract more customers.

And with the long-awaited release of Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant for mobile devices, more consumers could start pinging Microsoft data center infrastructure more frequently in the near future.

Meanwhile other cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and IBM have announced infrastructure build-outs in recent months.

Incidentally, Microsoft isn’t the only company that likes Des Moines for data centers. Facebook has one there, too.

Microsoft’s new data center campus will go up on a 154-acre lot over the next four or five years, costing roughly $1.126 billion, according to a report from the Quad-City Times.

Indeed, Microsoft fully intends to keep erecting new data centers.

“Additions to property and equipment will continue, including new facilities, data centers, and computer systems for research and development, sales and marketing, support, and administrative staff,” the company wrote in its most recent quarterly report. “We expect capital expenditures to increase in coming years in support of our cloud and devices strategy.”