15 interesting tech facts about las vegas

© 2014 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. Insight 2014 |

Insight 2014

15 Interesting Tech Facts About

Las Vegas


You’d bet it takes a lot of technical magic to power the city that never sleeps. Here are 15 tech-facts to feed your inner geek.

NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved. 2 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 Marco Verch


The world’s largest operating data campus is situated in southern Nevada to avoid natural disaster. Switch is a 2.2M sq. ft., multi-campus data storage facility housing thousands of servers belonging to companies such as Google, eBay and Zappos.

3 Photo Source: supernap.com NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


Want to surf on the fastest Wi-Fi around? ARIA Wi-Fi Internet offers a guaranteed 3 Megabit connection, the most in the industry.

4 Photo Source: Aria.com NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


In 1989, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) was awarded one of only 34 supercomputers in the world as part of a federal funding bill for the Department of Energy to study the suitability of building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Photo Source: UNLV.edu 5 NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


Did you know? There are 15,000 miles of neon tubing on the strip and downtown. That’s a lot of lights.

Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 patmurray 6 NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


Vegas Vic, the enormous neon cowboy that towers over Fremont Street, is the world’s largest mechanical neon sign.

7 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 wbeem NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


The fountains of Bellagio feature 1200 nozzles, 4500 lights, and 8000 meters of pipe, sitting in an 8-acre artificial lake filled with over 22M gallons of water. Small robots called oarsmen control the direction of the nozzles, and a computer system like a performance choreographer.

8 Photo Source: Bellagio Facebook page NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.

© 2014 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. Insight 2014 | Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 Richard Martin 9 NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.

Las Vegas doesn’t actually get much of its power from Hoover Dam, since the electric company serving Las Vegas is NV Energy, which owns its own power plants.


Where does the energy come from? 70% of NV Energy’s power generation for southern Nevada comes from natural gas fired plants.

10 Photo Source: CC BY-SA 3.0 NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


The electric bill cost to operate the Luxor pyramid beam is approximately $60 per hour. Estimated at $600 a night!

11 Photo Source: Luxor Facebook page NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


An average Las Vegas casino’s electric bill is around $85,000 per month. That’s about $750,000 to $1M a year.

12 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 patmurray NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


Solidifying CityCenter’s commitment to sustainability, ARIA is the largest building in the world with LEED Gold status. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design granted by the U.S. Green Building Council) Impressive.

13 Photo Source: CityCenter Facebook Page NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


The Las Vegas monorail is completely electric and produces zero emissions. A total of nine trains run on a single rail that sits 30 feet above ground in most areas, with its highest point reaching 60 feet above the Las Vegas Convention Center.

14 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 NikosCantiris NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


The highroller at the Linq boasts 7.2M pounds of steel and 112 cables. Each cable measures approximately 225 feet, for a combined total of 25,256 feet.

15 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 james marvin phelps NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


Vegas is home to over 22,000 conventions per year and is a proud host of the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, CES.

16 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 Tim Shields NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.


It’s no accident that casinos are absent of clocks. Not knowing the time increases the sense of freedom and therefore helps increase dollars spent gambling. Time flies when you’re having fun.

17 Photo Source: Flickr CC 2.0 David Stanley NetApp Insight 2014. All rights reserved.

Insight 2014 Las Vegas | MGM Grand October 27-30, 2014

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15 interesting tech facts about las vegas

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