Google to spend $1 billion in UK data center

Google will invest $1 billion in creating a data center just outside of London, the US tech giant revealed.

Google will invest $1 billion in establishing a data center just outside of London, the US technology behemoth announced, in its latest investment in Britain to address rising demand for internet services in the region.

The data center, which will be built on 33-acre (13-hectare) land purchased by Google in 2020, will be located near Waltham Cross, roughly 15 miles north of downtown London, according to an announcement by Alphabet (GOOGL.O).

The British government, which is encouraging corporations to invest in new infrastructure, particularly in growing industries such as technology and artificial intelligence, praised Google’s investment as a “huge vote of confidence” in the UK.

“Google’s $1 billion investment demonstrates that the UK is a technology hub with enormous growth potential,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a Google statement.

The investment comes after Google paid $1 billion for a central London office building near Covent Garden in 2022, as well as another site in adjacent King’s Cross, where it is building a new office and also houses its AI company, DeepMind.

It also comes weeks after Microsoft (MSFT.O), which opened a new tab, announced plans to invest 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in Britain over three years, including expanding its data center capacity to support future AI applications.

“This new data center 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,” Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said in a statement.

Google, which employs over 7,000 people in the UK, also stated that waste heat from the data center may be used to conserve energy and help the local community.