COLUMBIA, SC—Google confirmed Wednesday that it intends to invest $600 million in a new data center in Berkeley County, SC, creating 200 new jobs.

The data center will include two buildings housing server-farms that will handle part of the company’s worldwide Internet traffic.

The company says it hopes to have its first servers online by year’s end. The entire center should be operational in 18 months.

The company will build at Mount Holly Commerce Park about 20 miles northwest of Charleston because of its ample water supplies, which are needed for cooling the massive server operations.

The jobs at the Berkeley County facility will pay approximately $48,000 a year with benefits.

The announcement follows on the heels of Google’s choice of a similar server-farm site in North Carolina last month that stirred controversy over the hundreds of millions in incentives state and local governments provided the company.

The South Carolina choice also involves incentives from the SC Job Development Credits program. It also required rewriting the state tax code to allow exempting the company’s investment in equipment and the electricity it will use from sales taxes.

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
www.seventure.org

© 2007, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.