US tech giant Google announced on Thursday (August 29) that it will open its second data center in Latin America in Canelones, Uruguay, and invest over $850 million.
Google opened its first data center in Latin America near the Chilean capital Santiago in 2015. At that time, the company invested an initial capital of $150 million in the data center and an additional $140 million for expansion in 2018.
In response to the increasing demand for access to artificial intelligence, Google stated in a blog post on Thursday, "We hope that our new data center in Canelones will make a significant contribution to the professional and technological development of Uruguay and the entire region
Google also wrote that the company is collaborating with local universities in Uruguay, such as the Uruguayan University of Technology (UTEC) and the University of Montevideo (UM), to incorporate relevant technical content into their courses.
We are collaborating with the main partners of Uruguay's ecosystem - the National Development Agency (ANDE) and the National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII) - to promote business and innovation
Building a second data center in Latin America is just one step in Google's expansion of its territory. According to reports from the previous day, Google is also considering building a large-scale data center near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, which is expected to be completed by 2027.
In addition, in April of this year, Google announced a $3 billion investment to establish a data center campus in Indiana and expand its data center in Virginia; In May, Google announced that it would invest $2 billion in Malaysia to develop its first data center and Google Cloud region.