Google invests $300M in Iowa data center

Google is constructing a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which would bring the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s total investments in the town to nearly $1 billion.

According to the Associated Press, the search engine said the $300 million data center would add 50 new jobs to the area ranging from computer repair to logistics. Construction on the 1,000-acre project is slated to begin immediately; although, details regarding an end-date are not confirmed.

“Google’s secure data centers are some of the most energy efficient in the world,” explained Google on its Date Centers website. “Each year we save millions of dollars on energy costs, and we use renewable energy whenever we can.”

Google invested $600 million in another Iowa data enter three-years-ago to support an array of its services like Search, Maps, and Gmail. The technical plant spurred 200 new jobs, and Operations Manager for the Council Bluffs Google data center Chris Russell said Google intends to use its latest investment for the same purposes.

“We are glad to be in Iowa, and Google’s future here is very bright,” said Russell to the AP.

The state’s attractive electricity rates, workforce, and $9 million in tax credits encouraged Google to expand in western Iowa. Credits include everything from corporate tax relief to sales and property tax.

Director of the State Department of Economic Development Debi Durham mentioned Google’s proposal for its original Iowa data center was also for $300 million, but its price tag eventually soared to $600 million.

“I well anticipate them doing that again,” Durham told the AP. “But their (tax incentives) are capped at $300 million.”

Google recently announced a similar data center expansion in Pryor, Okla., which raises its investment in that area to $700 million.

“Our innovations have allowed us to develop and operate data centers that use half the energy of a typical data center,” Google detailed on its Inside the Data Center webpage. “We drive the efficiency and energy consumption of our equipment by building our own facilities, significantly reducing the amount of energy we need to cool our servers through temperature control and free-cooling, and reducing the energy lost through distribution of power throughout the data center. As a result, our data centers are some of the most efficient in the world.”

Google’s data centers use less than 0.01-percent of global electricity.