Report: Google Plans $66M Taiwan Data Center Investment

Google is planning to invest an additional $66.4 million into its data center in Taiwan’s Changhua County, one of two Google data centers in Asia.

A government investment commission announced it approved the Mountain View, California-based Internet giant’s investment proposal in late December, Focus Taiwan reported. Local press reported that the company was planning a major data center expansion at the site in October.

Google announced plans to build data centers in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong in September 2011. The company later scrapped its Hong Kong plans, but both Singapore and Taiwan facilities came online in December 2013.

The Google data center in Taiwan, sitting on a 15 hectares of land the company bought in 2011, initially represented a $600 million investment.

One of the unique features of the facility, operated by about 60 full-time employees, is its cooling and thermal energy storage system. It cools water at night, when it’s generally cooler, and stores it in insulated tanks to keep it cool, according to Google.

Water from the tanks is circulated through the data center’s cooling system during the day, which minimizes the amount of energy required for mechanical cooling. This was the first data center in the company’s fleet to use such a system.

Google said it chose Taiwan for one of its two Asian data centers because the country is a high-tech hub with reliable infrastructure. Its government supports innovation and foreign investment and fosters an “accommodating regulatory environment.”

In addition to the two facilities in Asia, Google has six data centers in the U.S., one in South America (Chile), and four in Europe.