How an ordinary field has turned into a super-modern data center Google at the price of one and a half billion dollars

Of course, the title is a little incorrect - after all, the field itself has not turned into anything; a data center has been built on it, which will be discussed below. But the essence is clear: a few years ago it was a common field in Iowa, Council Bluffs, USA, in 1000 acres. Now this is a huge integrated data center, the price of which is more than a billion dollars, and the corporation continues to invest.

So, Google became the owner of the field in 2007, paying for it, as far as one can judge, not the highest price. In 2011, the field was still empty. But over time, the corporation began rapid construction, and now one of the largest data centers of the corporation is already located in this place, and most of the infrastructure was deployed this year, at the very beginning. Three additional buildings have already been built, and several more are planned to be built - the place for them is already ready.

In total, the corporation plans to invest about one and a half billion US dollars in the construction of a data center in Council Bluffs. The places here, as they say, are good: the climate is relatively cool, the cost of a kilowatt of electricity is not too high, the energy infrastructure is reliable, there is a lot of land, and residents of the nearby city will only be happy to work for the company.

It is worth noting that not only the Good Corporation rated these places. Following Google, data centers in Iowa decided to build Microsoft and Facebook.

In addition to Council Bluffs, Google also has data centers in North and South Carolina, Oklahoma and Oregon. In total, the corporation spends about 2 billion per quarter on the construction and improvement of its data centers. At the same time, the corporation prefers to expand existing data centers, rather than build new ones.



Here's a satellite photo of the company's first data center in Council Bluffs.



Here is what the purchased field looked like in the same locality in 2011.



Here is the same place at the beginning of 2013.



Here is the current snapshot.



And here is what's inside the data center.



This is not photoshop, a real herd of deer, which decided to take a walk near the data center.



This is where backups are stored, in case something goes wrong.

According to representatives of the corporation, 130 jobs for IT specialists were created in this region, as well as hundreds of jobs (temporary) for various builders.



In 2010, the company signed a long-term contract for the purchase of wind energy from NextEra Energy Resources. In addition, the corporation invested in the development of wind farms in the region.

And here are some more photos of what is inside the company’s data center and next to it:









Via google