Google to open new $1 billion data centre in Hertfordshire

Google is by investing $1 billion in a new UK data centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. The 33-acre site will create construction and technical jobs for the local community. Once complete, this investment will bring crucial compute capacity to businesses across the UK, supporting AI innovation and helping to ensure reliable digital services to Google Cloud customers and Google users in the UK and abroad.

As a pioneer in computing infrastructure, Google’s data centres are some of the most efficient in the world. Google has set out their ambitious goal to run all of their data centres and campuses on carbon-free energy (CFE), every hour of every day by 2030.

The new Waltham Cross data centre is the latest in a series of investments that support Brits and the wider economy at large and is further evidence of Google’s continued commitment to the UK — a key country for their business and a pioneering world leader in AI, technology and science. This announcement builds on their investment in our offices with the $1bn purchase of their Central Saint Giles office in 2022, the 1 million sq ft. development in King’s Cross, and the launch of their Accessibility Discovery Centre — which aims to spur the creation of accessible tech for the whole of the UK.

In 2021, Google laid a new subsea cable — Grace Hopper — which connects the United Kingdom with the United States and Spain. They have visited more than 500 locations across the UK since 2015 and provided over 1 million people with free digital skills training. Just last year, they expanded their Google Digital Garage training programme to also include a new AI-focussed curriculum to enable more Brits to tap into the opportunities to benefit from the opportunities created by this technology.