Google Announces $1 Billion Investment in New Data Center in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, UK
Google has announced a $1 billion investment to build a new data center in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, UK. The data center will be dedicated to supporting artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and enterprise cloud services. Although Google purchased the site in October 2020, the announcement of the data center’s construction was made just this week.
The location of the new data center is approximately 12 miles north of central London. Traditionally, data centers have been located in the western suburbs of London, such as Slough and Hayes. However, with this new site, Google plans to utilize the waste heat generated by the data center to provide cheaper energy to the local community.
Ruth Porat, Google’s CFO, explained that the data center in Waltham Cross will help meet the increasing demand for AI and enterprise cloud services. Additionally, the data center will provide crucial additional computing capacity for businesses across the region. The construction of the data center is also expected to create construction and technical jobs for the local community.
Google has been operating in the UK for over two decades and has a research partnership agreement with the University of Cambridge. This $1 billion investment has been appreciated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who stated that such investments will drive economic growth in this decade.
Although Google has made job cuts in its shift towards AI integration, the latest reports indicate that the job cuts will not be as significant as previously estimated. In January 2022, job cuts at Google are projected to be less than the previously reported figure of 12,000.
