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Google Weighs Data Center Investment in Taiwan

2014/01/08 | By Ken Liu

At the unveiling of Google's Taiwan Cloud Data Center in Chunghwa County, central Taiwan on Dec. 11, 2013 , Joe Kava, the search engine giant's vice president for data center operation, announced the company will up its investment in Taiwan to US$600 million.


When breaking ground on the center in 2012, the company announced an investment of US$300 million in the project, up from an initially planned US$100 million.


When completed, the Taiwan center will be Google's 12th worldwide and its biggest one in Asia.


Taiwan's industry executives point out that the investment increase highlights Google's high regard of Taiwan. Although the company's US$120 million data center in Singapore was unveiled at about the time of the Taiwan data center, Google did not announce any plans to increase investment there. Earlier, the company announced that it would suspend plans to open such center in Hong Kong.


Kava pointed out that Taiwan provides several advantageous conditions for Google, including a complete information-technology (IT) ecosystem, quality production of information-technology products, less expensive utility bills, and efficient provision of flexible solutions.


He also expressed appreciation to the county government's impressive service efficiency, completing building permit application and project review in only three days.


According to people knowledgeable about the company's Taiwan investment project, the company will set aside around 80-90% of the expenditure for locally built data-center equipment, instead of the minimum 50% that Kava has announced. Local equipment manufacturers estimated to benefit from the purchase deals include Quanta Computer Inc., MiTAC International Corp., Wistron Corp., Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., Inventec Corp., and Delta Electronics Co., Ltd.


Deputy Economics Minister K.H. Liang, who also attended the unveiling ceremony, expected Google investments in Taiwan to contribute to the island's cloud-based information-technology service industry, which he estimated will generate revenue up to NT$450 billion (US$15 billion) in 2015.


Kava said that the internet market has huge growth potential in Asia, encouraging Google to plan more data center investment in Asia. He added that cloud computing is a growing trend and major internet companies worldwide are investing in in-house data centers. He said that Taiwan is well-positioned to win contracts from these companies due to its excellent IT manufacturing capability.


The data center, Kava stressed, is Google's first step to develop a "cloud data center ecosystem" with Taiwan's IT manufacturers. The center follows an earlier project to create an "Android mobile ecosystem" with domestic manufacturers.


The Taiwan Data Center features energy-saving and strict data-security design. Access will be controlled by employee IDs, retina scans and metal detectors to ensure no hard disks are removed from the data banks. The data banks are designed to cool recycled coolant water at night for daytime uses, reducing the energy load for 24-hour non-stop cooling. (KL)