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Google building data center in Taiwan to meet greater demand

Facing increased demand among users in Asia, the search giant is constructing its third data center in the region.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
2 min read

Google's upcoming data center in Taiwan will join those already being built in Hong Kong and Singapore as a sign of increased demand in Asia for the company's online services.

Costing a total of $700 million, the three data centers are being geared to provide users "with the fastest and most reliable access possible to all of Google's services," according to the company.

"More new Internet users are coming online everyday here in Asia than anywhere else in the world," Google said on its Web page for the new data center. "They are looking for information and entertainment, new business opportunities, and better ways to connect with friends and family near and far. We're building this data center to make sure that our users in Taiwan and across Asia can do just that."

With the $300 million Taiwan center just breaking ground, all three Asian facilities are scheduled to open sometime in 2013.

Google currently maintains six data centers in the United States and two in Europe. But the new center will be designed with the environment and Taiwan's hot summers in mind.

"This data center will be the first in our fleet to save energy through a nighttime cooling and thermal-energy storage system," the company explained. "And, like our other facilities in Asia, this will be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly data centers in the region."

Once it's up and running, the Taiwan data center is expected to employ 25 full-time Google staffers, as well as a host of part-time and full-time contractors.