A Virginia Beach-based data center and subsea cable company —along with other tech advocates — spoke before a Virginia House of Delegates committee Monday. They talked about the state’s unique role in the global internet, but also warned about the opportunities they fear the Commonwealth is missing out on.
Virginia’s concentration of datacenters and link to subsea data cables means about 70% of the internet in the entire world runs through our borders.
Chris Mitchell works for Virginia Beach-based Globalinx Data Centers. He said his company is already looking to add more subsea cable connections which could see data transfers in the state increase by 500%. But — despite that — he’s not seeing tech jobs and companies flocking to the state.
“There’s a lot of technology that we have that we can take advantage of by bringing in the types of companies that will elevate Virginia and keep us in the forefront of technology,” Mitchell said Monday morning.
He said the real issue is much of the infrastructure was set up at the beginning of the internet, including those subsea cables. They're reaching the end of their life cycle. But that’s probably a good thing; he said early cables saw transfer rates at around 10 terabytes a second. More recent cables can reach speeds up to 250 terabytes second. However, Mitchell predicts 1 petabyte lines — that's 1000 terabytes a second — could be the kind of cables to replace the old ones.
Add to that the soon-to-be-online offshore turbines in the Chesapeake Bay, and he said there’s a perfect storm for green energy and next generation high-speed internet.
Mitchell wasn’t there to pitch any legislative action, but Delegate Cliff Hayes, who chairs the House Communications and Technology Committee, said he invited the company to speak because lawmakers need to be looking toward the future.
“Everybody should be paying attention. No matter what area you represent, we need to be connected to high-speed internet,” said Hayes, who described the importance of planning ahead as a matter of survival. “We need to be planning about and thinking about what our capacity is going to be.”
And the issue is bipartisan. Southwest Virginia Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore said it's something that could benefit the entire Commonwealth.
“We’ve got to make sure all our broadband capacity is up to snuff, so you can operate your business whether you’re in southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads or northern Virginia,” the minority leader said. “We really need to make that push.”
And while it’s easy to discuss the issue statewide, other groups were there to advocate for localized impacts as well.
John Martin is with RVA757 Connects, a group looking to build a tech corridor between the Seven Cities and Richmond, with help from forthcoming high-speed networks.
He handed out a map to legislators that he called an “ecosystem” the cables would be part of.
“When you look across the country at jurisdictions with mature digital infrastructure, they’re growing fast in GDP and tech workers, and that correlation is so important,” he said — suggesting cities like Denver, Portland and Seattle were already ahead of the curve in planning their digital infrastructure dominance. “How do we catch them," he asked.
Hayes said the presentation Monday was only the first step in a long process to address the issue, with potentially more action on the horizon in future sessions.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
