Powering Hyperscale Growth: How T5 Data Centers Met a 30MW Demand Without Missing a Beat

The exponential growth of cloud computing, AI workloads, and IoT is pushing data center operators to think beyond traditional capacity planning. The result? Hyperscale clients are redefining the digital infrastructure landscape.

For T5 Data Centers, a project in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, became a showcase in effectively meeting and exceeding increasing power demands under tight timelines, all while maintaining uninterrupted service for existing clients.

T5 initially acquired a 164,000 sq. ft. warehouse with the goal of transforming it into a 17MW data center. Early tenants included a global banking firm with a 6MW commitment. The facility was designed with flexibility in mind, but the scale changed dramatically when a hyperscale client entered the picture. This client, representing the high end of demand with aggressive growth targets, needed far more than originally anticipated: an initial 2MW, with additional 2MW increments every few months, ultimately pushing the total IT load requirement of the site to 30MW.

This rapid escalation triggered a reimagining of the site’s electrical infrastructure. Scaling power delivery in a live facility presents unique challenges, particularly when uptime for existing tenants is non-negotiable. T5 responded with a strategic, multiphase expansion that involved major upgrades to both internal and external power systems. This included new substations, transformers, and power distribution units—all designed to ensure both resilience and future scalability.

A critical factor in this effort was a tightly managed partnership with ComEd, the local utility provider. T5 held weekly meetings with ComEd to navigate the logistics of the expansion and proactively prevent delays. This hands-on, forward-looking utility engagement illustrates the importance of infrastructure and relationship management working in tandem. 

Internally, T5’s engineering team addressed the challenge of supporting mixed rack densities, which required distributing power in a more granular and adaptive fashion. This level of flexibility is not always present in legacy data centers, but it was crucial in supporting the hyperscale client’s varied hardware requirements.

What makes this case exceptional is not just the technical accomplishment, but the fact that the team completed this transformation while maintaining uninterrupted service for all existing clients. The global bank’s 6MW operations continued without so much as a hiccup, an outcome made possible by meticulous staging and a redundant, resilient design.

The Elk Grove expansion is proof that scaling from 17MW to 30MW in a live environment is possible without compromising reliability. It also highlights the increasing importance of having an in-house construction and operations team that can respond quickly, make real-time decisions, and align all moving parts under a unified strategic vision.

At the heart of this success is T5 Construction—building the digital infrastructure that’s transforming the world. As a general contractor, T5 Construction delivers complex turnkey projects and offers construction management services that support every phase of project delivery. Backed by deep experience operating within live, production environments, T5 prioritizes safety, transparent communication, and builds with the full data center lifecycle in mind.

This project is just one example of the depth and breadth of services under T5 Construction. In addition to complex expansions and fit-outs, T5 Construction delivers ground up campus builds, retrofits, and turnkey projects. Our services include project management, commissioning, QA/QC, equipment procurement, owner’s representation, and preconstruction consulting – with a portfolio of over 200 completed projects totaling more than 4 million square feet of delivered data center space. 

Hyperscale growth isn’t just about capacity – it’s about power strategy. With coordinated execution and strong utility partnerships, data centers can meet surging demands without compromising uptime.

Learn more about this impressive project and download the full case study: https://info.t5datacenters.com/t5-construction-case-study-2025