LinkedIn

Overview

LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, has developed a significant presence in the data center space by moving from traditional colocation to operating its own hyperscale infrastructure. The company leases large-scale capacity in facilities across the U.S., including in Ashburn, Virginia; Richardson, Texas; and Hillsboro, Oregon. Its Hillsboro facility, hosted at Infomart, features advanced cooling, high-density racks, and runs on 100% renewable energy. Internationally, LinkedIn built a 23,500 sq ft data center in Jurong, Singapore, which handles one-third of its global traffic. To improve scalability and efficiency, LinkedIn developed Project Altair, a custom data center network architecture using horizontally scalable Clos topologies and commodity switches, alongside Project Falco, its in-house switch software. These efforts give LinkedIn greater control over performance, cost, and growth. Additionally, the company co-founded the Open19 initiative to promote modular and open data center hardware standards, especially for edge deployments. Overall, LinkedIn plays a hands-on role in the data center industry through custom engineering, global infrastructure, and sustainability-focused operations.