Editor’s Note: CORRECTION/Retraction/Apology: EPSON Portland Inc. has not sold its property and is not part of this sale- The company asks for correction: Flexential did not purchase the Epson Property as we previously reported on Alocleck Drive. The expansion Flexential announced on Aloclek last Friday was for the purchase of 3935 NE Aloclek Drive, Hillsboro, Oregon, which is immediately alongside Epson. Any reference to Epson selling or moving from its location is retracted and corrected in this article. The confusion came from incorrect mapping of the location announced by Flexential, as it was mapped on our source as immediately on the Epson property. The site Flexential purchased appears to be adjacent to Epson.
Epson Portland Inc. reached out this AM to advise the Herald that the information we printed was erroneous and had caused anxiety within the staff and employees. We offer a heartfelt apology to Epson Portland Inc., all of the staff, and hard-working employees and their families, and will hold any future reporting about Epson or Flexential until communications have been made. Simply stated, we will do better. Knowing Epson’s longstanding history in Hillsboro, we are pleased to see the company will continue to be in Hillsboro for years to come and provide meaningful jobs and technology to our community. This retraction and apology was made minutes after we heard of the erroneous reporting.
From Epson:
Epson Portland Inc. celebrates its 40th year of operations in Hillsboro next year and is here to stay. In fact, we have invested heavily in the site over the past three years, including purchasing the site outright in late 2023.
The Real Story – A Column By Dirk Knudsen
Data Centers – they are absolutely taking over Washington County. Particularly, Hillsboro, Oregon. This is the 43rd story we’ve published on the subject. When the land is gone and the jobs are gone, the record will show that the Herald saw it coming. And while land speculators and deal brokers are rolling in money every time another acre is plowed over, the rest of us are suffering under job losses caused by the AI that is powered inside these buildings. It is fair to say at this point that the Data Centers inside the City of Hillsboro and the AI that they serve up will be responsible for countless thousands of jobs in the next 5 to 10 years. Let that sink in. We have that many data centers here (3rd highest concentration in the country in any one place), and their reach is so vast using the fiber optic highway running through our valley, that jobs across the Western US will be affected.
Today, Flexential, a massive player in the Data Center space Nationwide,
“Hillsboro has become a smart alternative to Silicon Valley for customers seeking the performance, flexibility, and cost structure they can’t find elsewhere — especially those with strong ties across the Pacific,” said Ryan Mallory, President and COO of Flexential. “This project reflects our belief in focused, right-sized development that enables customer growth without chasing unnecessary scale, and it furthers our commitment to delivering reliable solutions while introducing much-needed capacity in a highly coveted area.”
Flexential operates four data centers in Hillsboro, with Hillsboro 5 — a 358,000-square-foot, 36 MW facility — under construction and expected to come online next year. Together, they form a major transpacific interconnection hub, with Hillsboro 2 often referred to as the “Network Access Point of the Northwest” because it houses the densest connectivity hub in the region and the U.S. landings of the New Cross Pacific and Hawaiki subsea cables, among four other subsea cables. The new building will be Flexential 6.
From the Flexential Press Release Today: https://www.flexential.com/resources/press-release/flexential-acquires-prime-property-hillsboro-plans-new-data-center
In fact, in 2023 and 2024, the Governor, pushed by Senator Janeen Sollman, Hillsboro Mayor Steve Callaway, North Plains Mayor Teri Lenahen, and a massive contingent of land owners and policymakers, tried to expand Industrial Land expansions onto thousands of acres of pristine farmland. The CHIPS ACT was going to pay out Billions into Washington County, and we would be the hottest tech area in the Country. Guess what, that era is ending, and if Intel doesn’t pull off a Hail Mary, it’s over.
The building will be massive, but inside it will house racks of servers, not employees. The parking lots will be nearly empty.
Power Hungry, Job Light
Flexential’s own figures show that the new Hillsboro 6 will support 27 megawatts of computing power. That translates to ~236 gigawatt-hours a year — the same as 21,300 Oregon homes.
But while it takes the power of a small city, a facility this size employs only 30–50 people.
If the current trend continues, Hillsboro could see 25 large data centers running 24 hours a day in the next five years. Each averages 20–30 MW. Collectively, that’s 500–750 MW of continuous demand — rivaling the daily consumption of all of Washington County and its 615,000 residents.
Who Pays the Bill?
PGE raised residential electricity rates by ~5.5% in January 2025. Bills are ~50% higher than five years ago. By contrast, large industrial users, such as data centers, negotiate rates that can be a third of what households pay per kilowatt-hour.
That rate disparity sparked the POWER Act (HB 3546), passed this summer, which creates a new rate class for data centers so their grid expansion costs don’t automatically land on household bills. But enforcement is thin, and the cost of substations, transformers, and new transmission still flows into the same system we all rely on.
The Scale of AI in Hillsboro
If 25 hyperscale facilities come online here, Hillsboro will be hosting:
~162,500 AI servers
Over 1.6 million AI chips (GPUs/TPUs)
900 battery containers (3 MWh each, for backup power)
7,750 potential jobs were erased compared with historic manufacturing footprints. Every Data Center that goes in forever removes our capacity to hire humans. In this case, a perfect location for people to work on US 26, surrounded by retail, restaurants, neighborhoods, parks, and more, will be lost forever. This is not a day to celebrate another Data Center, friends. The old Komatsu Fab/Solar World campus, where thousands once worked, is now filled with servers by NTT Global.
These aren’t just big buildings. They’re the engine rooms of artificial intelligence — training and running the models that will reshape industries worldwide.
Hillsboro at the Crossroads
Hillsboro is now a global digital junction. At least eight trans-Pacific fiber optic cables land on the Oregon Coast and route their data inland here before fanning out to Los Angeles, Seattle, and the East Coast. That infrastructure ensures these data centers are not just local warehouses of computation, but global control towers for the AI era.
The paradox is stark:
Jobs down. Dozens of security badges are replacing thousands of local livelihoods.
Power up. 21,000 homes’ worth of electricity will be devoted to this one Data Center.
Bills rising. Residents pay more while data centers bargain for lower rates.
AI ascendant. The chips here are erasing jobs far beyond Oregon.
- What About Us? I am going to ask all of you this again- what do we get as Citizens?
- Free internet? No-
- Jobs? No.
- Income and revenue? After the 5-year tax-free giveaway, they will get via the Enterprise Zone, Washington County, and the City of Hillsboro will rake it in. But that will only help maintain the status quo.
- Silence From Our Leaders – The Hillsboro City Council could do something- and so could Mayor Pace. But they won’t. Not because they do not care, but because they are not running the City. That is the role of our Economic Development team and our City Manager’s office. With those 2023-2024 high-paying jobs and the growth and prosperity it was going to bring long gone, this is what the state of play is. Hillsboro’s growth will slow. Revenues are tight and falling. But each data center promises to be a cash cow and should remain so for a decade or so. That is what people who run cities want- and that is why we will see Washington County leaders and City Leaders lay down for this future. It is Game On in Hillsboro for the Data Center Players, and we are clearing the way for them. The Mayor and Council can request limits on where Data Centers are located, for instance, by restricting them from Legacy employment districts such as Orenco, Evergreen Parkway, and Airport Industrial. They could also listen to our call for creating a Franchise Fee/Tax/Service Charge and capture revenues from it. They want tax breaks, cheap power, and our fiber optic cables, but they provide no jobs, right? Well then, pay up! It’s not a complex concept – we do it all the time with our homebuilders. Permits are through the roof. So, what do you say, guys?
Who Will Watch The Design and Nuisance?
Locals who work and live near the new Flexential project will want to consider the noise their facilities produce. If you live in Tanasbourne, Rock Creek, or Bethany, you’d better speak up, as you’re downwind and these massive fans are noisy and can be heard miles away. Watch this and learn.
Here is a look shot last week on NE Constable Drive in Hillsboro of Flexential Hillsboro 3- a similar-sized campus as the one announced today. Play this and listen to the noise coming from this building. Watch the care drive by and see the massive scale of this, 6 Football Fields can fit inside this building. Shot by the Hillsboro Herald just 5 days before the Flexental Story today broke.
Call the City of Hillsboro or go to the City Website and email the Mayor and the City Councilors your thoughts! Click Here To Go To The Form.
Flexential –
Let me be fair here. This is a solid company. Their data centers are among the most attractive, which is saying something for concrete buildings the size of City Blocks. The company was among the first to come to Hillsboro after WCI Cable laid the first massive fiber optic bundle right down Evergreen Parkway after they crossed the Ocean with it. Their first facility opened in 2013. But let me challenge them to stand up and be recognized as a company doing well- like REALLY WELL! Our high school students currently lack transportation home after sporting events due to budget constraints. Maybe this is an opportunity to help? Our County History Museum, with 100,000 items, is closing forever, and with it goes hundreds of years of history, the story of our people. Also, budget shortfalls. So might a local like me ask for some help? Is your success reflected in any charitable work in our community? I have no idea. But you’re not going anywhere, neither are most of us, so how about it? Time to help and be a great corporate citizen? Well…we can dream.
Here’s the Flexential Hillsboro timeline —
- Hillsboro 1 (2013): 3935 NE Aloclek Pl, ~120,000 sq ft, 12 MW
Hillsboro 2–4: Additional Aloclek buildings, 12–20 MW each
Hillsboro 5 (~2022): Brookwood Pkwy campus, ~358,000 sq ft, 36 MW
Hillsboro 6 (announced Sept 2025): Across from Hillsboro 1 on Aloclek Dr, ~350,000 sq ft, 27 MW (planned)
The Herald’s Take
Flexential calls Hillsboro 6 a milestone. It is. But not the kind most communities cheer for. The silent machines are the story of Hillsboro’s new identity: a factory town for artificial intelligence, where the product isn’t goods but algorithms, and the costs are shouldered by everyone who flips on a light.
And the story doesn’t end here. National estimates now suggest millions of U.S. jobs may be displaced as AI rolls through the economy. With Hillsboro poised to host over a million AI chips, we will soon examine the deeper question: how many livelihoods across America may be lost to the machines running right here in our backyard? And are we as a community now an International target? And we have not even touched on Carbon and Climate and heat islands-
That investigation is coming soon from the Herald.
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I stopped over at the park in Rock Creek that is on the other side of the freeway from Epson. What did I hear – the very loud freeway overpowering any other noise. I lived over at the Rock Creek Apartments years ago and know the constant hwy noise that drowns out all others (Other than the Fire House heading out on a call). I’m pretty sure nobody over there is going to notice when the New Flexential building comes online.
I’m wondering what is the point of calling out Flexential’s new site. I understand when there are complaints about converting farmland into industrial zones. But in this case, Flex is building a new datacenter, in a industrial area where other data centers exist, replacing an existing building, next to a noisy freeway. It seems like this is really an ideal location that avoids the pitfalls called out in other stories from the Herald?