The Case for Open Access Hyperscale Data Center Networks
The infrastructure powering hyperscale data centers risks bypassing the very communities that host it.
April 7, 2026 – A surge in data center development is reshaping rural America. Yet, many of these facilities operate as closed systems that do little to improve connectivity for the rural communities that host them.
Hyperscale data centers are typically single-tenant environments optimized for internal workloads but disconnected from local networks. Economic benefits are often limited to construction and tax incentives. As a result, existing infrastructure is not used to support regional connectivity.
To benefit both operators and local communities developers should integrate open-access colocation into rural data center campuses, Michael Still, a consulting solutions architect at Myriad360, argues in a recent op-ed for the Open Internet Exchange.
