Google to build massive data centre in North Carolina

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 23 January 2007 06:15

Your IT - Home IT

Lured by the promise of $100m in tax breaks, Google has announced Lenoir in North Carolina as the location of a proposed $US600 million data centre.

According to reports in the local press, Google picked Caldwell County after state and local leaders promised more than $US100 million in tax breaks over 30 years. In a statement, Lloyd Taylor, director of global operations for Google, said the centre "will help support continued growth in our online services."

However Google spokesperson Barry Schmitt told local media that Google also had not ruled out locating a facility in South Carolina, where, local press reports say, it I believed to have acquired 210 hectares of land.

The tax break could pay off handsomely for North Carolina, The state's Department of Commerce has estimated that the Google project will add $US1.06 billion to the its gross economic product over the next 12 years, and produce a net state revenue benefit of more than $US37 million.

However, it may not all be upside. Google has been building a massive date centre in Oregon over the past two years and, according to a report in the New York Times in June 2006, while the project has created hundreds of construction jobs and was expected to create between 60 and 200 permanent jobs in a town of 12,000 people, it had also pushed local real estate prices up by 50 percent.

The NYT reported that the project was shrouded in secrecy with even local public servants gagged. "The design and even the nature of the Google centre in this industrial and agricultural outpost 130kms east of Portland, Oregon, has been a closely guarded corporate secret. Many local officials in Dalles, including the city attorney and the city manager, said they could not comment on the Google data centre project, referred to locally as Project 02, because they signed confidentiality agreements with the company last year."

However it suggested that the centre's capabilities would be extraordinary. "Google is doing something radically different here. The very need for two cooling towers, each connected to a football field-sized data centre, is evidence of its extraordinary ambition."

The paper said that growth in Google's computing power had been as astounding as that of its business. "The best guess is that Google now has more than 450,000 servers spread in at least 25 locations around the world. The company has major operations in Ireland, and is building significant facilities in China and Russia."