Google plans to invest 3 billion euros in Europe
The chief executive said the investments will support 13,000 full-time jobs in the European Union every year.
Google’s top boss has said the tech giant is planning to invest 3 billion euros (£2.6 billion) to expand its data centres across Europe in the next two years.
Chief executive Sundar Pichai said it will bring the company’s total investments in the continent’s internet infrastructure to 15 billion euros (£13.2 billion) since 2007.
Mr Pichai met Finnish prime minister Antii Rinne in Helsinki and said the investments will support 13,000 full-time jobs in the European Union every year.
He also noted that Google is investing heavily in renewable energy, an initiative announced ahead of global rallies calling for action to guard against climate change.
Employees at Google and other big US tech companies such as Amazon and Microsoft planned to participate in the “global climate strike”.
The Google project will include the construction of more than a billion euros (£880 million) in new energy infrastructure in the EU, among them a new offshore wind project in Belgium, five solar energy projects in Denmark, and two wind energy projects in each of Sweden and Finland.
Mr Pichai said that once these projects come online, Google’s carbon-free energy portfolio will produce more electricity than places like Washington DC or entire countries like Lithuania or Uruguay use each year.
