Google Reaches For Cloud Space To Power Advertising, Services

A land deal being voted on Monday by the Montgomery County Commission and the Clarksville-Montgomery County Industrial Development Board would give Google the green light to invest more than $500 million to build a data center in Clarksville, Alabama.

The site -- once home to Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville -- may seem like just another purchase for Google, but the company increasingly need more storage capacity to support Gmail, search, programmatic advertising and other cloud-based services like Internet access as the number of connected devices grows.

Along with the devices, advertising services, from search to display and video will require a space to store and process data. Worldwide digital ad spending will reach $170.17 billion in 2015 -- up from $144.15 in 2014, eMarketer estimates.

Google's move comes as its Google Fiber division brings gigabit-speed Internet and TV service to Nashville, reportsThe Tennessean, a Gannett Co., citing sources familiar with the deal.

The Clarksville location would become Google's fifteenth data center and would look similar to one announced in the summer of 2015 for part of a former TVA coal plant site near Bridgeport, Alabama. Construction is expected to start next year on that multimillion-dollar project. The deal could mean that Google would occupy at least 830 acres.

Google has more than a dozen data centers worldwide, from Berkeley County in South Carolina, to Eemshaven, Netherlands.

Next story loading loading..