Google announces US$1bn Sustainable Data Centre Project

Global technology leader Google has announced a US$1bn investment into the construction of a new UK data centre, as it continues to expand its data centre presence.

Once fully developed, the 33 acre site will power popular digital Google’s services for people and organisations worldwide, as well as supporting the continued growth of the innovative AI developments. 

“People and organisations worldwide rely on Google’s data centres daily for the digital services they use,” said Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google. 

Porat joined Google in 2015 and is responsible for Finance, Business Operations and Real Estate & Workplace Services. She is focused on ensuring that the company invests to create sustainable, long-term value.

“The Waltham Cross data centre represents our latest investment in the UK and the wider digital economy at large. This investment builds upon our Saint Giles and Kings Cross office developments, our multi-year research collaboration agreement with the University of Cambridge, and the Grace Hopper subsea cable that connects the UK with the United States and Spain.

“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 for the local community. Together with the UK government, we are working to make AI more helpful and accessible for people and organisations across the country.”

Efficient construction for sustainable data centres

Data centres are large users of energy, but Google works hard to ensure that its data centres are some of the most efficient in the world. The new facility will allow for off-site heat recovery, provide the UK with more compute capacity, deploy an air-based cooling system, and provide generated heat to nearby homes and businesses to reduce energy waste. This type of technology has been posed as a global solution for data centres to meet digital demand in a sustainable way, with heat reuse potentially contributing to organisations simultaneously reducing global energy consumption and streamlining offered services.

This is on top of Google’s ambitious goal to run all of its data centres and campuses on carbon-free energy (CFE) entirely by 2030.

Alongside its sustainability commitments, Google hopes to create new construction and technical jobs to support the local community in Waltham Cross as part of its continued investment into UK digital transformations.

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