On Tuesday, Microsoft announced its world-class datacenter in El Mirage, which is part of its Phoenix datacenter region, is fully operational, bringing with it highly resilient, secure cloud services, sustainable design and operations, and community investments in water conservation, education and workforce training programs.

Facilities in El Mirage and Goodyear are part of Microsoft’s new West US 3 datacenter region creating an estimated 100 permanent jobs across a variety of functions, including mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and IT technicians.

“Microsoft’s datacenter investment creates new, local jobs to support operations and development and provides opportunities for businesses to innovate with Microsoft cloud services in our City, across Arizona and throughout the world,” said El Mirage Mayor Alexis Hermosillo. “We look forward to continuing to partner with Microsoft on local community initiatives, supporting cloud-powered business growth.”

The West Valley has a large talent pool, and the population over the next five years is projected to grow at twice the national average rate of growth. In the past two years, El Mirage officials have been expanding workforce development initiatives alongside Microsoft, including collaboration with Maricopa Community Colleges— developing training that prepares workers for jobs in the IT sector, including career paths in Microsoft datacenters.

“As Microsoft announces today that West US 3 is going live, the company has already invested $1.1 million in local projects across more than 70 community initiatives in Arizona,” said El Mirage City Manager Crystal Dyches. “Additionally, the annual economic impact of these datacenters is estimated at $20 million.”

The West US 3 datacenter region was selected for abundant solar energy, highly skilled workforce, proximity to customers and availability of land and specially designed for sustainable operations and resilience with three Azure Availability Zones, physically and logically separated datacenters with independent power, networking and cooling.

The Microsoft facilities in El Mirage and Goodyear are pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, an independent verification of a building’s green features and sustainable building practices.