By Daniel Stefanski |
An internet search engine giant is making a significant investment in the Grand Canyon State.
Last week, Google unleashed a significant announcement, revealing that it would soon be constructing a $600 million data center in Mesa, marking the first time the company has put down physical roots in Arizona.
Governor Katie Hobbs, who attended the event with Google executives and other local leaders, issued the following statement to commemorate the news for her state: “Google’s investment in Arizona will be critical for the Mesa community and our state’s economy. Arizona continues to attract global technology leaders due to our skilled workforce, dynamic economy and focus on innovation. We are proud to welcome Google to Arizona and look forward to the many opportunities this partnership will bring.”
Mesa Mayor John Giles added, “The City of Mesa is thrilled to welcome Google to our community. Google’s decision to designate Mesa as the home for its first facility in Arizona underscores its profound confidence in our city and residents.”
According to a release published by the City of Mesa, “the new Mesa data center will help power popular digital services – like Google Search, Gmail, Maps, Google Cloud, and others – for people and organizations worldwide.”
The Vice President for Google’s Data Centers, Joe Kava, said, “We are proud to put down roots in Arizona with both the data center in Mesa and the Phoenix cloud region. Not only do data centers help keep digital services up and running for people and businesses, they are economic anchors in the communities where we operate. We are appreciative of the continued partnership with the local leadership across the state.”
In addition to the multi-million-dollar infrastructure project, Google revealed that the Phoenix area would soon be welcoming “a new Google Cloud region to complement its existing network of regions around the world, bringing Google Cloud technologies closer to local customers – ranging from small, medium and large businesses to public sector entities and other organizations – to help them deliver digital services to their own users more reliably and at higher speeds.”
The Arizona Governor’s Office stated that “Google’s Mesa facility is the first data center in the United States to use zero-water cooling and has announced plans to be completely carbon-free and pursue net-zero emissions across its operations by 2030.”
Per an internal economic report, Google “helped provide $11.43 billion of economic activity for tens of thousands of Arizona businesses, publishers, nonprofits, creators and developers in 2022,” and “more than 367,000 Arizona businesses used Google’s free tools to receive phone calls, bookings, reviews, requests for directions and other direct connections to their customers.” Google also “provided $15.55 million of free search advertising to Arizona nonprofits through the Google Ad Grants program in 2022.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
