Google Inc yesterday announced it is investing at least US$100 million in building a data center in Taiwan as it speeds up investments to better serve the booming Internet market in the Asia-Pacific region.
The world’s largest search engine said it also planned to build centers in Hong Kong and Singapore, adding that the three centers would cost more than US$200 million and span a total of 22.6 hectares of land. Google currently owns and operates data centers in the US and Europe, but none in Asia.
The centers, which usually house computer and telecoms systems with high security and backup power supplies, are aimed at improving Google’s services.
“More people are coming online every day in Asia than in any other part of the world, so locating data centers here is an important next stage of Google’s investment in the region,” Google said in a statement. “A data center in Taiwan would help provide our users in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia with faster and more reliable access to Google’s services.”
Google has acquired 15 hectares of land in Changhua County and the planned data center is expected to be operational within one to two years, it said.
The facility could provide jobs for about five to 20 full-time staff, along with a small number of part-time and full-time contractors, including computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, as well as catering and security staff, the company added.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday lauded the project, saying it would enhance Taiwan’s aspiration to become the global hub for cloud-computing technologies.
Taiwan has been ranked the world’s 13th-most competitive nation in terms of information technology this year, according to a study released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on Tuesday.
The US kept its position as the world’s most IT-competitive country, followed by Finland and Singapore, based on criteria such as foreign investment policies, enrollment in higher IT education and access to capital, the EIU said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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