News Link • Surveillance

Utah's $1.5 billion cyber-security center under way

01-07-2011 • deseretnews.com/

Officially named the Utah Data Center, the facility's role in aggregating and verifying dizzying volumes of data for the intelligence community has already earned it the nickname "Spy Center." Its really long moniker is the Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center — the first in the nation's intelligence community. A White House document identifies the Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative as addressing "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter." The document details a number of technology-related countermeasures to the security threat. Hatch said Utah was chosen for the project over 37 other locations. He characterized the cyber-security center as the "largest military construction project in recent memory." Hatch said he promoted Utah's favorable energy costs, Internet infrastructure, thriving software industry and proximity to the Salt Lake City International Airport in the bid process that ended up with Camp Williams earning the data center. The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the project that is under contract to a joint venture between Big-D Construction in Salt Lake City, U.K.-based Balfour Beatty Construction and DPR Construction out of California.