Georgetown IT Director Shares Plans for New Data Center

The city of Georgetown is building a new primary IT data center as part of a $56 million customer service center construction project.

According to 2022 U.S. census data, Georgetown is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. The new data center is part of the city’s plan to prepare for more growth over the next three decades.

Georgetown IT Director Chris Bryce spoke with Industry Insider — Texas about his department’s plans for the data center and how its construction will affect the city’s growth.

“An overarching goal of the move is to centralize more technology services at the new building in order to provide efficiencies for both city operations and customers,” said Bryce. “IT will be able to manage its infrastructure and better support customer-facing departments that will also be located in the building.”

According to Bryce, the IT Department’s goals for the facility include hardening cybersecurity protections, physically protecting IT assets from disasters and providing more secure technology services to city departments that provide mission-critical services.

“Plans for the facility will also allow further expansion of the IT department and data center services to support future city growth, especially in areas such as utilities, public safety and public works,” said Bryce. “These departments have substantial technology portfolios that expand as the city expands and as new technologies are incorporated into their services. We hope to have a data center that will also be flexible and modular, allowing the IT department to adapt to new technologies such as hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, next-generation communication technologies and many other technologies as they emerge.”

According to an RFP released by the city on July 9, Georgetown is actively searching for vendors capable of designing and installing the new data center. Interested vendors have until 2 p.m. Aug. 6 to submit their proposals.