1623 Farnam CEO Bill Severn Talks Midwest Interconnection at the Crossroads of AI and the Edge

Nov 25, 2025

Bill Severn, CEO of 1623 Farnam, discusses transforming Omaha into a vital interconnection hub for AI and cloud technology. He redefines the edge, emphasizing its role in content aggregation and network density. Severn highlights the strategic importance of 1623 Farnam's location, driving significant fiber growth with over 5,000 new strands. With a focus on multi-cloud needs, he notes increasing demand from local enterprises for direct access to major cloud providers. The facility's energy efficiency, achieving a sub-1.5 PUE, showcases its commitment to sustainable operations.

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INSIGHT

Edge Is Where Eyeballs, Network, Content Meet

Bill Severn defines the edge as where eyeballs, network, and content merge rather than a physical location.
Aggregating content at carrier hotels like 1623 Farnam creates value that single cell-tower sites cannot justify.

INSIGHT

Geography Gives Omaha Routing Advantage

1623 Farnam sits on the 41st parallel, the shortest east-west fiber route across the U.S., giving it strategic routing value.
That geography plus high carrier and broadband density makes it an aggregation point for hyperscale east-west traffic.

INSIGHT

Interconnection Demand Is Accelerating

Severn is bullish on interconnection economics for the next 3–5 years driven by new high-count fiber and hyperscale plans.
Farnam added 5,000 new fiber strands and 5,000 meet‑me strands in 2025, reflecting accelerating internal and regional connectivity demand.

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In this episode of the DCF Show podcast, Data Center Frontier Editor in Chief Matt Vincent sits down with Bill Severn, CEO of 1623 Farnam, to explore how the Omaha carrier hotel is becoming a critical aggregation hub for AI, cloud, and regional edge growth. A featured speaker on The Distributed Data Frontier panel at the 2025 DCF Trends Summit, Severn frames the edge not as a location but as the convergence of eyeballs, network density, and content—a definition that underpins Farnam’s strategy and rise in the Midwest.

Since acquiring the facility in 2018, 1623 Farnam has transformed an underappreciated office tower on the 41st parallel into a thriving interconnection nexus with more than 40 broadband providers, 60+ carriers, and growing hyperscale presence. The AI era is accelerating that momentum: over 5,000 new fiber strands are being added into the building, with another 5,000 strands expanding Meet-Me Room capacity in 2025 alone. Severn remains bullish on interconnection for the next several years as hyperscalers plan deployments out to 2029 and beyond.

The conversation also dives into multi-cloud routing needs across the region—where enterprises increasingly rely on Farnam for direct access to Google Central, Microsoft ExpressRoute, and global application-specific cloud regions. Energy efficiency has become a meaningful differentiator as well, with the facility operating below a 1.5 PUE, thanks to renewable chilled water, closed-loop cooling, and extensive free cooling cycles.

Severn highlights a growing emphasis on strategic content partnerships that help CDNs and providers justify regional expansion, pointing to past co-investments that rapidly scaled traffic from 100G to more than 600 Gbps. Meanwhile, AI deployments are already arriving at pace, requiring collaborative engineering to fit cabinet weight, elevator limitations, and 40–50 kW rack densities within a non–purpose-built structure.

As AI adoption accelerates and interconnection demand surges across the heartland, 1623 Farnam is positioning itself as one of the Midwest’s most important digital crossroads—linking hyperscale backbones, cloud onramps, and emerging AI inference clusters into a cohesive regional edge.