Bank of America’s plan to close three data centers was a June 2017 infrastructure-consolidation story, not a new 2026 announcement. Contemporary reports described an expected charge of about $300 million. The bank’s second-quarter filing later recorded a $295 million impairment tied to data centers in the process of being sold, and a third-quarter earnings call referred specifically to three facilities.
What was announced in June 2017?
On June 1, 2017, Data Center Dynamics reported that Bank of America planned to eliminate three data centers during the following quarter. On June 5, Data Center Knowledge published a report attributing the account to American Banker.
The initial reports described a planned closure and an expected charge of roughly $300 million. At that point, the facilities’ names and locations were not disclosed, and the reports said the bank could sell the sites but had not made a final decision.
Why was Bank of America consolidating its data centers?
The move was part of a technology-modernization program rather than an exit from data-center operations.
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Software-defined and private-cloud infrastructure
Bank of America was shifting from fixed-capacity legacy systems toward software-defined infrastructure and a private-cloud environment. That model lets the bank provision computing capacity as needed instead of maintaining physical infrastructure for peak demand.
Data Center Dynamics reported that approximately 20,000 workloads had been moved to the bank’s software-defined infrastructure. The bank also compared its per-workload economics with services from Amazon, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure.
Consolidation and broader cost reduction
Data Center Knowledge linked the closures to a wider effort to consolidate and digitize operations. Chief executive Brian Moynihan identified potential annual savings of $1 billion to $1.5 billion for that broader program. That estimate was not presented as savings generated by closing these three facilities alone.
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The strategy combined private-cloud modernization, workload consolidation and selective use of outside technology providers. The reporting does not establish that Bank of America moved all systems to a public-cloud provider.
What did the accounting records show?
| Figure or event | What it means |
|---|---|
| About $300 million | The rounded charge expected in contemporary reports for the closure plan. |
| $295 million | An impairment charge reported in Bank of America’s second-quarter 2017 Form 10-Q for certain data centers in the process of being sold. It appeared within “other general operating” expense. Read the filing. |
| $125 million | Severance disclosed separately. Data Center Knowledge said it was not related to the data-center closures and was primarily associated with higher-salaried managers. |
| $425 million | A broader expected severance-and-closure figure reported by Data Center Dynamics, combining different cost categories rather than representing the impairment alone. |
An impairment is an accounting reduction in an asset’s carrying value; it is not necessarily a cash payment of exactly $295 million. The later filing is more precise than the rounded contemporary estimate.
Were the facilities closed, sold or both?
Those terms describe different parts of the process:
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- Close: stop operating a facility as an active Bank of America data center.
- Sell: transfer ownership or disposal rights.
- Impair: recognize that the accounting value of an asset has fallen or may not be recoverable.
The second-quarter Form 10-Q said certain data centers were in the process of being sold. On October 16, 2017, the bank’s earnings-call transcript referred to the $295 million impairment on three data centers that were being sold. See the transcript.
This confirms a disposition process, but the public record does not provide a complete, authoritative record showing that every sale had closed, identifying buyers or documenting any post-sale lease arrangements.
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The reports and filings cited here do not identify the three facilities by name or location. It would be speculative to equate them with properties in other Bank of America real-estate transactions, leased colocation sites or facilities used by third parties.
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Were layoffs connected to the closures?
Bank of America was also reducing jobs in its operations and technology division during June 2017. Contemporary reporting connected those cuts with broader technology cost reduction, but did not give a closure-specific headcount. Data Center Knowledge separately stated that the $125 million severance amount was not related to the data-center closings. The evidence therefore does not support assigning a particular number of layoffs to the three facilities.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Did customers experience outages?
The cited reports do not describe a customer outage caused by the closures. Retiring a physical site does not necessarily terminate a service: workloads can be migrated, replicated or redistributed before a facility is shut down.
No public timetable, workload-by-workload migration list, recovery targets, outage statistics or customer-notification record is supplied by these sources. Those details should not be inferred.
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What the 2017 plan did—and did not—prove
What it showed
- Bank of America was reducing reliance on legacy, fixed-capacity infrastructure.
- Software-defined and private-cloud systems were central to the modernization effort.
- The bank expected a substantial one-time charge while pursuing longer-term efficiency.
- Three facilities were being closed or sold as part of that transition.
What it did not show
- It was not proof of a wholesale migration to AWS, Azure or another public cloud.
- The $1 billion-to-$1.5 billion estimate was not a verified return from these three sites.
- It did not establish the facilities’ locations, ownership structure or final buyers.
- It did not establish a closure-related employee count or prove that customers were unaffected.
Why the story still matters
For a large regulated bank, consolidation can improve equipment utilization, automation and deployment speed, but it also introduces migration, concentration, security, licensing and data-governance risks. A private-cloud approach can provide workload portability without treating public-cloud services as the only destination.
The 2017 event also illustrates why “close,” “sell” and “impair” should not be treated as synonyms. A bank can stop operating a site, recognize an accounting loss and sell the property on different timelines.
Current perspective
Bank of America’s 2017 closures did not represent an abandonment of data-center infrastructure. In 2026, the company remains involved in digital-infrastructure activity, including financing for new third-party data-center development and analysis of data centers’ power, water and materials requirements. See its 2026 data-center financing announcement and Bank of America Institute research.
The Bottom Line
Bank of America’s three-data-center plan was a 2017 consolidation and modernization move: roughly $300 million was expected, a $295 million impairment was recorded, and the facilities were being sold. It was not a current announcement or evidence that the bank had abandoned data centers or moved everything to the public cloud.
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