Google has announced that it will invest another EUR 600 million in its data centre operations in Hamina in Finland in 2020, bringing its total investment there to EUR 2 billion since 2009. This will support approximately 4,300 jobs per year on average over the next two years and beyond.
CEO Sundar Pichai said the Finnish spending plan is part of a EUR 3 billion new investment to extend data centres throughout Europe over the coming two years. This brings Google's total investment in European internet infrastructure to EUR 15 billion since 2007. Pichai said Google's expenditure supports more than 13,000 full-time jobs in the EU every year, according to a new study by Copenhagen Economics.
Pichai said the Hamina data centre supports economic growth and opportunity but also serves as a model of sustainability and energy efficiency for all of Google's data centres.
The CEO said that as part of Google's recently announced renewable energy strategy, it is committing to two new Finnish wind power projects. Google will then match almost all of the electricity consumption at its Finnish data centre. He said there will be ten projects in Europe that will spur the construction of more than EUR 1 billion in new energy infrastructure in the EU. They include an offshore wind project in Belgium, five solar schemes in Denmark, and two wind energy projects in Sweden.
Pichai said that earlier this month, it opened a Grow with Google hub under the name Digital Garage in Helsinki to provide digital skills training. He said its philanthropy arm will provide a grant worth USD 2 million Nesta, the UK-based innovation foundation, to organise training with trade unions in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
