Internet: Google is planning a large data center south of Berlin – Digital
Google wants to invest around one billion euros in Germany to advance its cloud business. Several millions may flow in the community of Mittenwalde, not far from the BER airport and the Tesla factory in Grünheide.
Mittenwalde – The Internet giant Google has targeted a commercial area almost 20 kilometers south of BER Airport to build a data center for the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area.
A Google spokesman confirmed a corresponding report by the “Märkische Allgemeine” on Friday. According to this, the data center is to be built on an area of around 30 hectares in the Schenkendorf district of Mittenwalde (Dahme-Spreewald district) between the L30 and the A13.
There is no development plan yet
Google spokesman Ralf Bremer said Google has initiated the purchase of a property in Mittenwalde and is evaluating other options in the region. “Further steps are necessary before the final takeover. Nevertheless, we are pleased that we are making progress with our plans in Berlin-Brandenburg.”
On the one hand, according to reports, there is still no development plan that would allow the construction of a data center. On the other hand, there is no firm promise from the notification of the energy supply company that the planned system can save enough electricity. However, Google is also keeping other options open and wants to make the start of construction dependent on the demand for cloud services in the capital region and in Brandenburg.
Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD) expects a positive economic boost for the region. “This is good news beyond the city limits, Brandenburg and Berlin benefit from it.”
Google has been working for years to free itself from the dependence on the advertising business on the Internet and to find new sources of revenue. Sundar Pichai, the head of the Google group Alphabet, is therefore also trying to build up the cloud division as an important source of income. Against this background, major investments in Germany were approved just over a year ago in order not to leave the lucrative German cloud market to the national Amazon AWS and Microsoft or German providers such as Ionos from the United Internet Group.
According to the plans presented a year ago, by 2030 investments in Germany should add up to a good one billion euros. With this money, Google is expanding into one of its Frankfurt/Main cloud regions with a new data center in Hanau. A completely new cloud region Berlin-Brandenburg is to be set up in Mittenwalde.