MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foundation stone laid for Google's data center in Uruguay

Google's data center will cost US$ 850 million and be ready in 26 months, it was explained

Representatives of technology giant Google and the Uruguayan Government, including President Luis Lacalle Pou, took part Thursday in the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone for the company's future data center in Pando, in the department (province) of Canelones, within Montevideo's Metropolitan Area.

Other Uruguayan personalities attending the event were opposition presidential hopeful Yamandú Orsi and his running mate and former Montevideo Mayor Carolina Cosse, as well as Ministers Omar Paganini (Foreign Affairs) and Elisa Fazio (Industry), among others.

Orsi was mayor (governor) of Canelones and Cosse was Industry Minister when the agreement with Google was signed during the Broad Front's administration before Lacalle Pou's inauguration.

Google's data center at the Science Park on Route 101 in Pando will cost around US$ 850 million. Works are expected to take 26 months. The South American country's authorities highlighted the project's sustainability and the confidence in the country it represented. In her speech, Fazio underlined that sustainability was a “key driver for development” in addition to being a reality from the energy viewpoint, given that 97% of the country's electricity generation is renewable. There are “few countries that can offer this condition,” she stressed. This center is “a necessary incentive for other industries, which we have identified as having growth potential in the country, to gain momentum to project themselves to the world,” she also said.

Paganini noted that “we can have a great opportunity as a country for projects like this because we have legal certainty.” In Uruguay, companies can know that policies will continue over time, “that the rules of the game do not change, and that an investment like this can last for many years.”

The plant's construction will require between 300 and 400 workers on average with a peak of approximately 800 people. When operational, it will represent some 50 permanent jobs.

Google's Eduardo López highlighted that the multinational was “interested” in Uruguay becoming an “innovation partner.” A “fundamental factor” for economies today has to do with “processing, information and connectivity,” he added. “It is very important for us to really be in this place and create a Data Center that allows us to evolve,” he also pointed out.

The new facility will become a “transformation tool,” López also mentioned while highlighting the company's “commitment” to Latin America through platforms such as YouTube, Gmail, and Google's search engine. “These are the products that will run in our Data Center in Uruguay,” he explained.

Uruguay will thus join a network of 28 such data centers in 11 countries worldwide. “It is not an exclusive thing to be used in Latin America,” López also underscored.

It all stems from a strict confidentiality contract agreed upon during the administration of late President Tabaré Vázquez who traveled with Cosse Google's headquarters in the United States. But it was not until October last year that Google confirmed it would go on with the project.