Two years ago, Google announced that it would covert a 1,300-acre former Hemlock Semiconductor facility in Clarksville, Tennessee into a new $600 million data center. Now, Google has broken ground on the site. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has used this opportunity to announce that the company will be investing $2.5 billion to open new facilities or expand existing ones in 14 states.
While portions of the $2.5 billion investment will go to the upcoming Clarksville facility, some parts of it will go to opening or expanding data centers in Alabama, Virginia, Oregon and Oklahoma. In addition, the company will create or add to offices in nine other states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.
Google plans to use the expansion plan to add thousands of jobs and bring Google’s operations to a total of 21 states and six data centers across the US.
The company planned the Clarksville site to be a mode of efficiency, and had purchased enough renewable energy to offset 100 percent of its electricity use. This allows the company to keep its efforts in-line with its aspirations.
Lastly, Pichai has also announced that the company will be donating $300,000 in grant money to Goodwill of Middle Tennessee to add digital skills training to its workforce-development program.
