Google has started building its new data center in Belgium. This will be located at a new location in the Walloon municipality of Farciennes. Google already received a permit for the construction of that data center in February.
The construction of Google's new data center started on Friday and will take 'several years', VRT also writes. In total, Google is making an investment of one billion dollars in Belgium. In addition to the new data center in Farciennes, Google's existing data center location in Belgium will also be expanded. The solar park near that location will be expanded.
Google previously announced that it wants to build a new data center location in Farciennes. In the long term, three data centers will be located at that location. The tech giant then said that construction would begin at the end of 2023. The first data center at that location would be ready in 2025. Google received permission for its construction in mid-February. The data center should eventually create 400 jobs.
The new data center complex will be Google's sixth in Belgium. The American company already has five data centers in the municipality of Saint-Ghislain. In 2022, it was also announced that Google purchased 36 hectares of land in La Louvière, a municipality in the province of Hainaut. It is not yet known what the tech giant wants to do with that territory.