QTS Data Centers in Arizona

QTS Realty Trust, known as QTS Data Centers, is a Blackstone-owned builder and operator of large data centers that, as of October 2026, lists three Arizona campuses as In Development: Phoenix 2 on North 40th Street in Phoenix, where a 42MW building was reported operating in 2023; Phoenix 3 in Glendale, reported under construction in February 2025; and Phoenix 4 in Avondale. In its 2020 annual report, QTS described itself as a provider of data center solutions to the world's largest hyperscale technology companies, enterprises and government agencies, with its executive headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Blackstone funds completed their acquisition of QTS on August 31, 2021, in a deal valued at approximately $10 billion including debt, and QTS stock is no longer listed on any public market. At that time QTS said it owned more than 7 million square feet of data center space in North America and Europe. Today QTS markets a land portfolio of more than 3,000 acres for hyperscale development; that is a company-wide figure, not an Arizona one.

In the AI and chip supply chain, QTS supplies the buildings, power and cooling that hold other companies' computers. QTS says its liquid cooling is designed for cooling-intensive workloads such as AI, a company-wide product claim. QTS does not name the tenants or workloads at its Arizona campuses in any source Arizona AI reviewed, so Arizona AI does not say which AI companies, if any, use them. QTS says it does not disclose specific power capacity for security and confidentiality reasons. On water, QTS says its closed-loop cooling design needs a one-time fill of typically around 615,000 gallons per building rather than ongoing water use for cooling, and its Glendale campus page lists a water-free cooling system among its goals. QTS also says buildings still use water during construction and for domestic needs [not independently verified].

QTS's Arizona history begins in Phoenix. Its 2020 annual report says a leased Phoenix data center came with its June 16, 2015 acquisition of Carpathia Hosting and was still leased at the end of 2020, though the filing gives no address. In July 2017 QTS bought approximately 84 acres of land in Phoenix for future development. By 2023 QTS was operating a 337,330 square foot, 42MW building at 1200 40th Street, described as the first in a planned 280MW+ campus on 85 acres, and it broke ground on a fifth building there, PHX2 DC5, on March 21, 2023. QTS's campus page listed an address for DC5 as of May 2026 but does not state which buildings are operating. The same 2023 report described a second QTS site at 120 East Van Buren Street in downtown Phoenix, a 288,000 square foot building with 32MW of capacity. That downtown site is not on QTS's current list of U.S. locations, so its status today is unknown [not independently verified]. QTS's current page for the 40th Street campus, which it calls Phoenix 2, describes an 80-acre campus with 210 MW+ of critical campus capacity across buildings DC1 through DC5. These acreage and capacity figures differ by source and year and should not be combined.

QTS then moved into the West Valley. On July 5, 2022 it bought nearly 400 acres west of the Loop 303 from First Industrial Realty Trust and Merit Partners for about $255 million, a price later reported as $255.3 million. QTS submitted initial plans for this campus, called Phoenix 3, to the City of Glendale in early 2023. The plans reported in 2024 call for 16 buildings of around 180,000 square feet each, about 3 million square feet in total, north of Camelback Road along Cotton Lane. QTS's website then said the 375-acre campus would offer 750MW of critical capacity; that is planned capacity, not operating capacity. In February 2025 the Phoenix Business Journal, republished by the Arizona Technology Council, reported the Glendale campus as under construction. No construction update after February 2025 was found; as of October 2026 QTS lists Phoenix 3 as In Development, and its current Phoenix 3 page gives no megawatt figure. QTS lists building addresses on West Camelback Road with a Litchfield Park postal address.

A third Arizona campus, Phoenix 4, is in Avondale. Before QTS bought the land, the seller, TGV Investments, secured a rezoning and general plan amendment for the Hermosa Ranch site in May 2024, and the Avondale City Council approved a final plat in June. Data Center Dynamics reported that the council approved the general plan amendment unanimously despite concerns from city staff [not independently verified]. In July 2024 QTS paid $246.8 million in an all-cash deal for 206 acres there. AZBEX reported that the data center would occupy 212 acres of the 234-acre Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus North area [not independently verified]. QTS lists the campus at 11753 W Lower Buckeye Rd with a Tolleson postal address, and no megawatt figure for it was found. As of October 2026 QTS lists Phoenix 4 as In Development. The Glendale and Avondale amounts are land prices only, not total project investment.

QTS has also put money and effort into training Arizona data center workers. QTS says an alliance it leads built the Maricopa Community Colleges Data Center Operations certificate, which QTS calls the second program of its kind in the nation. On July 23, 2025, QTS, EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure and the Phoenix chapter of AFCOM launched a scholarship fund for that program, with initial gifts of $33,350 from QTS, $10,000 from AFCOM and $5,000 from EdgeCore. The fund supports up to 50 students at Mesa Community College and Estrella Mountain Community College in the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters [not independently verified]. No report on the fund's results after July 2025 was found.

As of October 2026, QTS lists all three Arizona campuses, Phoenix 2, Phoenix 3 in Glendale and Phoenix 4 in Avondale, as In Development, even though a Phoenix 2 building has operated since at least 2023. QTS has not published an Arizona employee count. It says it will support 40,000 jobs in the U.S. this year, a projection that counts contractors, suppliers and local economic effects as well as QTS employees, so it is not a QTS headcount and not an Arizona figure. Taken together, the facts show one operating campus in Phoenix, a Glendale campus reported under construction and an Avondale campus QTS lists as In Development, with power, water and tenant terms for Arizona not publicly disclosed by QTS.