Google is building a third data centre in Singapore to meet rapid user growth in the region, bringing its total long-term investment in such facilities here to US$850 million (S$1.16 billion).
The US$350 million facility will be in Jurong West near its first two centres.
Google said the complex, which is expected to come online in 2020, will be built on a plot of land the size of the first and second centres combined.
Joe Kava, vice-president of Global Data Centres Google, noted in a post that the multi-storey building will be “one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly sites in Asia”.
Machine learning will be leveraged to reduce energy usage, while recycled water will be used with 100 per cent of waste diverted from landfills.
The tech giant did not say how many new jobs the facility will create, but its spokesman said “we are actively hiring, with openings listed on our job site”.
Google employs about 1,000 people here and is advertising openings for roles such as data centre technician, programme manager for data centre design and site director for hardware operations.
The company started building its first South-east Asia data centre in Singapore in 2011, with a second going operational in 2015. It also opened a Google Cloud Platform region last year to serve enterprise customers and other clients.
“The pace hasn’t slowed. In the three years since our last update, more than 70 million people in South-east Asia started getting online for the first time, bringing the region’s total to more than 330 million – that’s more than the whole population of the United States,” said Mr Kava.
“More businesses are getting online too, which has meant quickly growing demand for our expanding Google Cloud Platform offerings,” Mr Kava said, citing Singapore Airlines, ride-hailing start-up Go-Jek, logistics firm Ninjavan and travel search engine Wego.