One of Cray supercomputers NSA deployed in the '80s and early '90s, now on display at the agency's museum

US federal and Utah state officials announced last week the US National Security Agency’s plan to build a new $1.6-billion data center in Camp Williams, Utah.

NSA Deputy Director Glenn Gaffney, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and three members of the US Congress made the official announcement of the project, touting the hundreds of new jobs it was going to create in the state, whose unemployment rate in September stood at six percent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

DatacenterDynamics reported the project’s details in July, after President Barack Obama signed the national defense budget for fiscal year 2010. As part of the budget, $800 million was approved to fund Phase 1 of the 65 MW data center. No funds have been appropriated for Phase 2.

According to a statement prepared by Herbert’s office, one of the new data center’s functions will be to support NSA’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, a Bush-administration program, reportedly aiming to enhance the government’s ability to protect sensitive information.

“Our nation’s communications networks are now such an integral part of our daily lives that even a modest disruption could have severe consequences for our economy and way of life,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (one of the announcers) said in a statement.

“Our networks are increasingly under attack from a range of sources, everything from the hacker who steals your identity and runs up huge credit card bills to a coordinated assault on a nation’s computer infrastructure.”