Google on Monday said it is planning to invest in New Green Power Co (NGP, 永鑫能源), a solar energy developer owned by BlackRock Inc, to build 1 gigawatt of solar capacity in Taiwan to supply clean energy for its local data center and offices.
“Our investment in NGP, subject to regulatory approval, will serve as development capital toward its 1 GW pipeline of new solar projects, catalyzing critical equity and debt financing for those projects,” Google’s Data Center Energy global head Amanda Peterson Corio wrote on a company blog.
It did not disclose financial details.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
“We expect to procure up to 300 megawatts of solar energy from this pipeline through power purchase agreements and the associated energy attribute certificates (Taiwan Renewable Energy Certificates or T-RECs) to help meet electricity demand from our data center campus, cloud region and office operations in Taiwan,” Corio wrote.
Google has been operating a US$600 million data center in Changhua County since 2013.
The company might take a step further by offering a portion of this clean energy capacity to its semiconductor and manufacturing partners in the region so they can advance their sustainability goals while helping Google reduce its Scope 3 emissions, the indirect emissions from its value chain, Corio wrote.
“As we witness growth in demand for digital services, powered by artificial intelligence and data center technologies, it becomes imperative to invest in clean energy,” BlackRock global head of climate infrastructure David Giordano said on the Google blog.
Google’s new solar investment has helped boost the share prices of the nation’s major solar module manufacturers amid expectations that the large-scale clean energy project would stimulate solar module demand locally given Taiwan’s complete solar energy supply chain.
Google’s plan to build 1 gigawatt of solar energy is equal to 40 percent of the nation’s solar energy installation totaling 2.5 gigawatts last year.
The stock prices of Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), TSEC Corp (元晶) and United Renewable Energy Co (聯合再生) yesterday rallied 9.95 percent, 10 percent and 9.81 percent to close at NT$34.25, NT$31.35 and NT$14.55 respectively.
Google’s latest solar energy project could help alleviate the tight supply of green energy in Taiwan.
To address that issue, the Taiwan Photovoltaic Industry Association (台灣太陽光電產業協會) said it has proposed to the nation’s major power users, mostly technology companies, to build their clean energy capacity and most of them agreed.
Bankers in Hong Kong skipped the summer break as an artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled rush for capital sent share sales to a record, defying a bruising selloff in the city’s stocks. Initial public offerings (IPOs), placements and block trades raised US$47.5 billion in July to last month, the biggest haul ever for the period, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That pushed fundraising this year above US$92 billion and within reach of the US$112.5 billion record set in 2021. AI has been at the heart of Hong Kong’s deal revival, but this summer brought a new level of intensity. Chinese companies raised ever-larger sums
SILICON ISLAND: When asked about geopolitical tensions, Lisa Su said that ‘Taiwan is absolutely critical to the semiconductor supply chain, and very, very critical for AMD’ Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) yesterday said the company plans to “substantially” increase manufacturing capacity next year through its Taiwanese supply chain, particularly with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related processors continues to outstrip supply. “It is a very exciting time right now for all kinds of compute, and especially on the CPU [central processing unit] side,” Su said during a visit to Taiwan. “The overall market has increased a lot in 2026, and so we have also increased our own supply and capacity in 2026, but I can
BOOMING BUSINESS: Memory supply constraints would be even more severe in 2027 and 2028, prompting customers to sign long-term supply agreements, Micron said Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光) yesterday said it is accelerating memorychip capacity expansion amid growing artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand, with its accumulated investment in Taiwan reaching NT$1.6 trillion (US$50.2 billion) as of June. The company’s investment in Taiwan has surged over the past four years, with recent spending equaling the total invested over the past 25 years, Micron Taiwan chairman Donghui Lu (盧東暉) told a media briefing in Taipei. “The launch of ChatGPT and the outbreak of COVID triggered increasing demand for memory chips. Since then, demand has gathered pace rapidly, with only a brief pause in 2023 when a major downturn”
Taiwan ranked fifth worldwide in net financial assets per capita at the end of last year, averaging 164,470 euros (US$186,219), a report released this week by Germany-based Allianz Research said. Taiwan's ranking remained unchanged from the previous year, trailing only the US, Switzerland, Denmark and Singapore, Allianz’s Global Wealth Report said. In the report, Allianz assessed household assets and liabilities in nearly 60 countries, finding that global household wealth reached a record high last year, while the rise of artificial intelligence and market gains made asset ownership increasingly important in determining who benefits from wealth creation. Global financial assets reached a record 268.4
RSS