The Utah Data Center, code name Bumblehive, is the new centerpiece of the National Security Administration. The compound's exterior building construction is complete, which was celebrated May 30 in a closed ribbon cutting ceremony. Invitations went to "our most loyal partners at the local, state, and federal level." The information technology is now going in. The facility is expected to be operational by October.

The $1.5 billion Bluffdale / Camp Williams facility, officially called the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, but generally referred to as the Utah Data Center, is a data storage facility of the National Security Administration (NSA) that will be operational by October 2013.

The site has classified status (under "National Security Presidential Directive 54"), but it's reported it will be a primary storage to archive and analyze contents of private emails, cell phone calls, Google searches and other personal data trails. It's believed the center will have a codebreaking unit to decrypt secure encrypted data. Secure encryption is used for credit card transactions and other financial transactions.

The Utah center, the centerpiece of NSA's data mining (there are also facilities in Hawaii, Texas, Colorado, and Georgia), will be capable of storing a mind-boggling amount (yottabytes) of data. A yottabyte equals 1 trillion terabytes, or 1 quadrillion gigabytes.

NSA officials state the agency chose the Bluffdale location over 37 others because of more available land and cheaper electricity The center reported will "consistently use" 65 megawatts of power, that's enough to power 33,000 houses. It's estimated the energy costs for the facility will be $40 million a year.