Feds open data center in western Maryland

The Social Security Administration has a new national data center.

Officials held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the center Monday in wooded hills near Frederick, Maryland. It replaces a 34-year-old building at the agency's Baltimore-area headquarters, about 40 miles away.

Officials say that at 300,000 square feet, the two-story, beige-and-glass complex along Interstate 270 is about 35 percent smaller than the building it replaces and will use about 30 percent less electricity than a typical data center.

The center maintains demographic, wage, and benefit information on almost every American. It was funded by $500 million in economic stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Eighty people will work at the center when the gradual transition to the unincorporated community of Urbana is completed in 2016.

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