Google has received the green light for a $600 million project to expand its data center campus in Oregon as tech giants and real estate developers race to build technical systems to prepare for artificial intelligence-fueled growth.
The Dalles, a small city about 80 miles east of Portland, approved Google’s application to build a fifth data center at its campus along the Columbia River, according to a notice this week from the city’s community development department.
The project would expand the complex that opened in 2006 as Google’s first corporate-owned data center. The sprawling campus has grown over the years to what local media reports describe as equal to the size of two football fields.
The latest project comes as the once-small data center niche benefits from demand for computing speed and cloud storage capacity as well as growth from the artificial intelligence sector.
“The data center industry has experienced explosive growth over the past decade, driven by ever-increasing demand for cloud services and the expanding use of web-enabled devices globally,” according to a global data center report from JLL.
“In the next five years, consumers and businesses will generate twice as much data as all the data created over the past 10 years,” the report adds.
Google has made cost-saving measures over the past few years to address slowing advertising revenue and higher interest rates, all while reinforcing its investment in artificial intelligence.
The Mountain View, California-based tech giant — and others such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple — have rushed to accelerate investments in technical infrastructure, such as new data centers, to prepare for additional growth in the burgeoning AI sector.
Companies with large global real estate portfolios such as Blackstone have also doubled down on data centers even as many firms scale back investment in other property types such as office.
Google subsidiary Design LLC and its general contractor, Whiting-Turner, based near Baltimore, filed an application with The Dalles in November to build the 290,000-square-foot facility at 3500 River Road.
The tech giant has invested a total of $1.8 billion in the campus and region over the past 18 years, Google said in a document posted on its data center website.
The company and city did not respond to CoStar News’ questions about the timeline for the project, which still awaits final site and construction plan approval.
Google’s global data center network has grown to 14 facilities across the United States, six in Europe, three in Asia and one in the South America country of Chile, according to the company.
The latest project is planned on about 190 acres that previously housed the Columbia Falls Aluminum smelting plant. The development has been in the works since 2022 and is planned to include tax abatements and other incentives, according to city and county documents.
Google’s existing facilities in The Dalles employ 200 people. The company is also investing in city and Wasco County water and sewer infrastructure projects, including new wells, pipes, pumps and water storage tanks, the company said.
