14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced that it plans to expand its Finland data center and that it's pouring a further €450 million ($607 million) into it. The company has already invested some €350 million ($472 million) in the Hamina site.
The site is home to one of Google's biggest and one of the most interesting facilities. The company converted an old paper mill into a modern data center. The search giant was lured by the cheap and green energy in the region and the cool climate which keeps cooling bills down.
What's more, the Hamina data center was one of the first to be water cooled. The facility draws water straight from the sea, via old pipes used by the paper mill, to cool its servers and then releases the water back.
With the expansion, Google is creating a few dozen new permanent jobs at the location as well as a few hundred temporary jobs during the construction of the new wing.
"Many of our data centres are located in traditional industrial areas where one might not immediately think of being the home for a Google facility. In Finland, the region around our Hamina data centre stands at the heart of a region hard-hit by the retrenchment of its paper industry," Google boasts.
"Our data centers can provide real motors to reinvigorate these industrial regions. With our financial support, the prestigious Aalto University and the regional development agency Cursor are working to bolster promising startups and to improve the use of the Internet by local small and medium sized industries," it adds.
Finnish authorities are quite pleased with the deal and the new investment. It must be noted though that, while Google will be spending a lot of money on its data center, most of it won't go to the construction companies or to the workers employed there. The bulk of the sum will go towards hardware.