Google Building $200 Million Asian Data Centers

Google, Inc. on Thursday announced plans to build three data centers in Asia at a cost of $200 million for the first two centers. The centers will be Google’s first in the region and are meant to help the company keep up with Asia’s exploding internet market.

The centers will likely be placed in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan where Google has already purchased land space big enough to support the centers.

If all goes as planned the centers will be completed in one to two years and the first two centers in Hong Kong and Taiwan will bring with them a $100 million price tag each.

It aims to finish construction in one to two years, but didn’t give specific start dates. The Taiwan and Hong Kong data centers are expected to cost $100 million each, including the cost of land. Google has not given a figure for Singapore.

According to Taj Meadows, Google’s policy communications manager in Asia:

“Google is setting up the new data centers so users can have “faster and more reliable access” to online services”

Google hopes the center will give them advantage in the growing “cloud based computing” sector which allows users to create and share word documents, emails and other information over a shared space.

Currently Google runs there data centers out of the United States (6 centers) and Europe (2 centers). Google also prides themselves on building energy efficient data centers.

There’s even more good news about the centers in Taiwan and Hong Kong where Google will employee five to 20 full-time staffers to run the facilities.