Mittenwalde The Internet giant Google has set its sights on a commercial space almost 20 kilometers south of BER Airport in order to build a data center for the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area. A Google spokesman confirmed a corresponding report of the “Märkische Allgemeine” on Friday. Under certain circumstances, the data center will then be built on an area of around 30 hectares in the Schenkendorf district of Mittenwalde (Dahme-Spreewald district) between the L30 and the A13.
Google spokesman Ralf Bremer said that Google had initiated the purchase of a plot of land in Mittenwalde and was exploring other options in the region. “Further steps are required until the final takeover. Nevertheless, we are pleased that we are making progress with our plans in Berlin-Brandenburg.“
On the one hand, according to reports, there is still no development plan available that allows the construction of a data center. On the other hand, there is a lack of a firm commitment from the local energy supply companies to be able to supply the planned plant with sufficient electricity. However, Google is also keeping other options open and wants to make the start of construction dependent on the demand for cloud services in the capital region and in Brandenburg.
Brandenburg’s Minister of Economic Affairs Jörg Steinbach (SPD) expects a positive economic boost for the region. “This is good news beyond the city limits, and Brandenburg and Berlin benefit from it.“
Google has been working for years to free itself from dependence on the advertising business on the Internet and to find new sources of revenue. Sundar Pichai, the head of the Google group Alphabet, is therefore also trying to build up the cloud division as an important pillar of earnings. Against this background, large investments in Germany were approved just over a year ago in order not to leave the lucrative German cloud market to the market leaders Amazon AWS and Microsoft or German providers such as Ionos from the United Internet Group.
According to the plans presented just over a year ago, investments in Germany are expected to total a good billion euros by 2030. With this money, Google is expanding its cloud region Frankfurt / Main with a new data center in Hanau. A completely new cloud region Berlin-Brandenburg is to be set up in Mittenwalde.
