Dive Brief:

• Google will invest $350 million this year to expand its Council Bluffs, Iowa, data center campus, according to a company press release shared with Construction Dive.
• The Council Bluffs data center ranks as one of Google’s largest facilities and helps power popular digital services, such as Google Cloud, Workspace, Search and Maps.
• The investment tacks on to Google’s more than $5 billion investment into the state since breaking ground on the site in 2007, according to the release.

Dive Insight:

Google’s continued investment in technical infrastructure, such as its data centers, plays a critical role in supporting the company’s AI innovations and growing Google cloud business, said Allie Hopkins, Google’s head of data centers in Iowa and Nebraska, in the release.

“Iowa is building the infrastructure for American innovation,” said Hopkins. “It’s home to one of Google’s largest data centers, providing the infrastructure for digital services and AI innovations that serve people and businesses around the world.”

In Iowa, Google has created jobs for over 900 people in a variety of full-time and external supplier roles, including computer technicians, engineers, and other construction, food services, maintenance and security roles, according to the release. Google claims to be the first major company to set a 2030 target to run its business on carbon-free energy, every hour of every day, in all of its data centers and campuses worldwide.

Data center projects remain strong

Major data center operators and hyperscalers continue to show interest in markets with ample land and water supply, low natural disaster risk and favorable energy costs, according to a report from Dallas-based real estate services firm CBRE on data center markets.

For that reason, in addition to the data center campus project in Iowa, Google has also shared plans to invest in more data center clusters across the U.S. 

For example, the tech giant recently broke ground on two new data centers in Columbus and Lancaster, Ohio. Those two new facilities will tack on to Google’s other data center in the state: a $600 million facility in New Albany, Ohio. 

In addition, Google also announced last year an investment of about $9.5 billion in offices and data centers in the U.S., including hyperscale facilities in Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma, according to the company.