Google will invest $1 billion to build a data center on the outskirts of London, the US tech giant said Thursday in its latest investment in Britain to meet growing demand for Internet services.
Located on a 33-acre site acquired by Google in 2020, the data center will be located in Waltham Cross, 15 miles north of central London, the company said. GOOGowned by Alphabet Inc., in a statement.
The British government, which has been pushing for business investment to fund new infrastructure, particularly in growth industries such as technology and artificial intelligence, described Google's investment as “great confidence” in the UK.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a Google statement that “Google's billion-dollar investment is testament to the UK's position as a center of technological excellence.”
The investment follows Google's purchase of a central London office building near Covent Garden in 2022 for billions of dollars, as well as another site near King's Cross, which will create new offices and house his AI company DeepMind.
It also comes weeks after Microsoft 
MSFT It revealed plans (link) to pay Britain £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) over three years, including increasing its data center capacity to support future AI services.
“This new data center will help meet growing demand for our AI and cloud services and bring critical computing capacity to businesses across the UK while creating technology and construction jobs,” said Ruth Porat, Alphabet's chief financial officer.
Google, which employs more than 7,000 people in Britain, also said the waste heat generated at the data center could be an energy saving opportunity that would benefit the local community.
($1 = 0.7881 pounds)
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