Internet giant Google wants to build a new data center southeast of the capital. The land acquisition is in progress, it said. However, there are still a lot of hurdles and unanswered questions.
Internet giant Google is targeting a commercial site almost 20 kilometers south of BER Airport to build a data center for the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area. A Google spokesman confirmed a corresponding report by the “Märkische Allgemeine”. According to this, the data center is to be built on an area of ??around 30 hectares in the Schenkendorf district of Mittenwalde (Dahme-Spreewald district) between the L30 and the A13.
Google spokesman Ralf Bremer said Google has initiated the purchase of a property in Mittenwalde and is evaluating other options in the region. “Further steps are necessary before the final takeover. Nevertheless, we are pleased that we are making progress with our plans in Berlin-Brandenburg.” On the one hand, according to reports, there is still no development plan that would allow the construction of a data center. On the other hand, there is no firm commitment from the local energy supply companies to be able to supply the planned system with sufficient electricity.
However, Google is also keeping other options open and wants to make the start of construction dependent on the demand for cloud services in the capital region and in Brandenburg. Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach expects a positive economic boost for the region.
Google has been working for years to free itself from the dependence on the advertising business on the Internet and to find new sources of revenue. Sundar Pichai, the boss of the Google group Alphabet, is therefore also trying to build up the cloud division as an important source of income. Against this background, major investments in Germany were approved just over a year ago in order not to leave the lucrative German cloud market to the market leaders Amazon AWS and Microsoft or German providers such as Ionos from the United Internet Group.
According to the plans presented a year ago, by 2030 investments in Germany should add up to a good one billion euros. Google is using this money to expand its Frankfurt/Main cloud region with a new data center in Hanau. A completely new Berlin-Brandenburg cloud region is to be set up in Mittenwalde.
