Google Commits $3.3B To European Data Center Expansion

The $3.3 billion commitment will include $662 million to expand Google’s data center presence in Hamina, Finland, where Google has invested $2.2 billion in the last decade.

Google plans to invest $3.3 billion to expand its data centers in Europe in the next two years.

The expansion will bring the technology company’s total investment in Europe’s internet infrastructure to $16.5 billion since 2007, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who held a press conference with Finland Prime Minister Antti Rinne today in Helsinki.

The $3.3 billion commitment will include $662 million to expand Google’s data center presence in Hamina, Finland, where Google has invested $2.2 billion in the last decade.

“Our Hamina data center is a significant driver of economic growth and opportunity,” Pichai said in a blog post today. “It also serves as a model of sustainability and energy efficiency for all of our data centers.”

The company also has European data centers in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, where it broke ground on a $662 million data center in November. By 2021, its European investments are expected to yield $16.8 billion in economic activity and support 13,100 full-time jobs in the European Union, according to a Google-commissioned study released by Copenhagen Economics today.

Google, which yesterday announced a 1,600-megawatt package of renewable energy agreements comprised of 18 new deals, said nearly half of the megawatts will be produced in Europe through 10 projects.

“These agreements will spur the construction of more than ($1.1 billion) in new energy infrastructure in the EU, ranging from a new offshore wind project in Belgium to five solar energy projects in Denmark and two wind energy projects in Sweden,” Pichai said. “In Finland, we are committing to two new wind energy projects that will more than double our renewable energy capacity in the country, and ensure we continue to match almost all of the electricity consumption at our Finnish data center with local carbon-free sources, even as we grow our operations.”