Google announces $1B UK data centre to address increasing demand for AI

Google has unveiled its intention to allocate a substantial $1 billion towards establishing a new data centre in the United Kingdom. This strategic move is aimed at effectively addressing the escalating need for its artificial intelligence and cloud services

The data centre, located on a 33-acre site bought by Google in 2020, will be located in the town of Waltham Cross, about 15 miles north of central London. The UK government, actively encouraging business investments to support the development of new infrastructure, especially in thriving sectors such as technology and artificial intelligence, hailed Google’s investment as a ”huge vote of confidence” in the UK.

”Google’s $1 billion investment is a testament to the fact that the UK is a centre of excellence in technology and has a huge growth potential,” 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.

“This new data centre will help meet the 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, with a workforce of more than 7,000 individuals in Britain, has additionally highlighted the potential of utilizing waste heat from their data center as a means of energy conservation, which can bring advantages to the local community.