Google has confirmed that it will build a £1bn data centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire.
The investment, announced at the Davos summit in Switzerland, has been hailed as a “huge vote of confidence in Britain” by the chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
Google said it had started to build the facility on a 33-acre site which it bought in October 2020. It plans for construction to be completed by 2025.
The data centre will power Google’s cloud and AI services for British customers and will be the company’s third big site around the capital, after King’s Cross and Central Saint Giles in London.
The announcement comes less than two months after Microsoft said it would invest £2.5bn to expand data centres for artificial intelligence nationwide.
It wants the heat generated by the centre to be used to heat homes and businesses in the local area.
