Google to invest $1 billion to set up its first data center in the UK

Google has announced an investment of $1 billion in a new data center in the UK that will boost AI innovation and support Google Cloud customers in the region. This would be Google’s first data center in the UK.

“This new data centre will help meet growing demand for our AI and cloud services and bring crucial compute capacity to businesses across the UK while creating construction and technical jobs for the local community,” said Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Alphabet and Google. The company has been present in the UK for two decades and employs about 7,000 people in the country.

To be located on a 33-acre site in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, near London, the data center comes at a time when the UK is trying to position itself as a leader in technology.

“The UK is a fantastic place to invest, and Google’s $1 billion investment is testament to the fact that the UK is a center of excellence in technology and has a huge potential for growth,” UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in press statement. This announcement comes close to Microsoft’s investment of $3.2 billion over the next three years in the UK to boost its AI data center infrastructure.

The new data center facility will deploy an air-based cooling solution, in line with its commitment to run its data center on Carbon-Free Energy (CFE). “Capturing data center heat represents an opportunity for energy conservation and can benefit the local community,” said the press release. Google has set the target of net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2030.

Google’s growing investments in Europe

In the past, Google has invested in Grace Hopper subsea cable that connects the UK with the US and Spain. In addition, the company also announced the purchase of the Central Saint Giles site in London for $1 billion in 2022.

Earlier in 2019, Google announced plans to invest 3 billion Euros ($3.26 billion) in Europe over three years to ramp up its data center presence in the continent. It had invested 15 billion euros ($16.32 billion) between 2007 and 2019 in Europe. Besides this announcement in the UK, Google has data centers in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Belgium in Europe.

Google invested 6.9 billion euros in European data centers between 2007-2018, which supported economic activity worth 8.8 billion euros and generated 9,600 jobs per year on average, as per a study commissioned by Google.

Google’s investment is in line with the general increase in data center investments as AI drives growth across all geographies. The recent JLL EMEA Data Center Report said the first half of 2023 recorded a jump of 65% when compared with the previous year. London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin are Europe’s largest data center hubs.