The data centre, located on a 33-acre (13-hectare) site
bought by Google in 2020, will be located in the town of Waltham Cross, about
15 miles north of central London, the Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O), opens new tab
company said in a statement.
The British government, which is pushing for investment by
businesses to help fund new infrastructure, particularly in growth industries
like technology and artificial intelligence, described Google's investment as a
"huge vote of confidence" in the UK.
"Google's $1 billion investment is testament to the
fact that the UK is a centre of excellence in technology and has huge potential
for growth," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in the Google statement.
The investment follows Google's $1 billion purchase of a
central London office building in 2022, close to Covent Garden, and another
site in nearby King's Cross, where it is building a new office and where its AI
company DeepMind is also based.
It also comes weeks after Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab
unveiled plans to pump 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) into Britain over
three years, including in growing its data centre capacity, to underpin future
AI services.
"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," Alphabet
Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said in the statement.
Google, which employs over 7,000 people in Britain, also said that waste heat generated from the data centre would be an opportunity for energy conservation that can benefit the local community.
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