Document shredding and data management company Iron Mountain Inc. today said it’s planning to buy IO Data Center LLC’s U.S. business for $1.3 billion.

Boston-based Iron Mountain has been busy snapping up data center facilities across the globe in recent months. The company in September said it was buying a 210,000-square-foot facility from Denver-based Fortrust. It’s also in the process of buying two data centers from the financial services firm Credit Suisse Group in London and Singapore.

IO Data Center’s U.S. assets including four colocation data centers, including two based in Arizona, one in New Jersey and another in Ohio. The firm rents out its data centers to 550 U.S. customers across the aerospace, financial services, federal government and technology industries.

William Meaney, Iron Mountain’s chief executive officer, said the company’s aim was to diversify away from its core records management business into the lucrative colocation facility market. Rather than using cloud services, some companies prefer instead to rent out data center capacity in a colocation facility, with the building owner providing the dedicated services, cooling, power, bandwidth and physical security.

Meaney added that he expects the company’s data center business to make up about 10 percent of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 2020.

“We continue to experience strong demand and growth in our data center business, with a focus on establishing a presence in the largest global markets for colocation and enterprise customers,” Meaney said.

Iron Mountain said it expects the deal to close next month.

Image: Iron Mountain