Google plans second datacenter for Chile

Internet giant Google is planning to build a second datacenter in Chile, according to a filing with the environmental evaluation system (SEA).

The US$200mn facility would be built on the edge of the Cerrillos and San Bernardo districts of capital Santiago on a 23 hectare site.

In an email, Google would not confirm the news but told BNamericas, "We're always exploring new possibilities to improve our infrastructure. At this point, we don't have anything to announce."

According to the SEA filing, the datacenter will be built in two phases with a continuous electric power supply and diesel-powered generators as backup. Construction is due to begin in June 2020 and the center will have a working life of 28 years, the documents show.

Last September, Google's parent Alphabet launched the phase two expansion of its first datacenter – the only one in Latin America – in Santiago's Quilicura district, requiring a US$140mn investment on top of the US$150mn invested in phase one (2012-15).

That facility is intended mainly to improve the user experience for Latin Americans who use services like Gmail, YouTube, search, advertising and Google virtual assistant, as well as for developers working on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Phase two tripled Google’s datacenter real estate in Chile to 11.2 hectares.

The datacenter connects to Google's Marie Curie cable, which links Chile and California and landed on the Chilean coast in April.

The government of President Sebastián Piñera is aiming to boost communications infrastructure to help position the country as an investment hub for datacenters and plans to put out to tender US$131mn in connectivity projects next year.

That's in addition to Fibra Optica Austral (FOA) – a 4,000km submarine and terrestrial fiber cable connecting the southern city of Puerto Montt and southernmost Puerto Williams on the Beagle channel, and a 24,000km submarine fiber cable connecting Asia and Latin America which is at the prefeasibility stage.

Chile has a number of large datacenters owned by the likes of CenturyLink, IT company Sonda and local telcos Gtd and Entel.

Huawei has announced plans to build a datacenter in the country and AWS is rumored to be considering one.