Google Filing Lifts Lid On Data Centre Expansion

Google is to build a new 808,355 square foot data centre site at its existing Lithia Springs, Georgia site, according to a public filing submitted.

The $300 million (£193.7m) expansion, which will house a 500,000 square foot data centre, was revealed last month, but the July 9 filing has unearthed new technical details.

Woodside

The expansion will consist of a four-storey building, along with extra ‘auxiliary structures’. The project has been dubbed ‘Woodside’ by Google, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and is set to be completed by the end of 2016.

The project will go some way in helping Google meet customer demand. Not only do Google’s data centres power its colossal search engine, but they also help run its Google Cloud service, as well as Google Maps, YouTube and the incoming need for extra servers for the Internet of Things.

In June, Google revealed plans to build a massive data centre on the site of a coal power plant in Jackson County, Alabama.

The Widows Creek coal station is set to be shut down imminently, with Google planning to splash $600 million to redevelop the site into its fourteenth major data centre.

“Data centres need a lot of infrastructure to run 24/7, and there’s a lot of potential in redeveloping large industrial sites like former coal power plants,” said Patrick Gammons, Google’s senior manager of data center energy.

“Decades of investment shouldn’t go to waste just because a site has closed; we can repurpose existing electric and other infrastructure to make sure our data centres are reliably serving our users around the world.”

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