Google plans to build its fourth European data centre, today announcing that it is investing over €600 million (£537 million) in a facility in Denmark that will be wholly powered by renewables.
In Europe Google currently operates data centres in Belgium, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands. It appears Denmark was selected this time due to its substantial wind energy sector.
The company has not said what MW the centre will be, nor its square footage. Computer Business Review has asked Google for further details.
The data centre will take advantage of advanced machine learning to “make sure every watt of electricity counts”, Google said.
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Joe Kava VP of Global Data Centers at Google commented in a blog post that: “Whenever Google looks for a new place to build a data center, it’s important that the location has high-quality digital infrastructure and supports renewable energy production.”
“In Fredericia (Denmark), we’ve found a great business community and a location with existing infrastructure that fits what we’re looking for when we set out to build an efficient, modern data center.”
Google says that its planned data centre is due to be fully operational by 2021 and will employ between 150 and 200 staff.
In a study commissioned by Google, Economics firm Copenhagen Economics forecast that the construction of the centre alone will support the Danish GDP by £169 million per year. It is also estimated to create over 1,450 jobs per year over the 2018-2012 period.
When the data centre is fully operational it is expected to contribute £71 million per year to Denmark’s GDP.
Denmark Datacentre
Google is not the first company to invest in data facilities in Denmark. Facebook and Apple have both purchased land in Denmark with the intention of building data centres.
A cold climate is also among the drawers, given data centres’ high cost of cooling.
A key factor in data centre infrastructure development in Denmark is the Havfrue undersea fibre optic cable system which is been laid from New York to Europe. The connection points on the European mainland are located in Norway, Ireland and Denmark.
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Due to be fully installed by the end of 2019 the Havfrue cable system is estimated to have a capacity of 108 Terabytes per second.
The cable system is been constructed by a consortium of Bulk Infrastructure, Aqua Comms, Facebook and Google.
