The company's 15th, the new data center is located at the site of a former semiconductor plant in Clarksville, Tenn.

Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, Light Reading

December 28, 2015

3 Min Read
Google Opening $600M Tennessee Data Center

Google has announced it will launch its 15th global data center at the site of a former semiconductor plant in Tennessee, for an investment of $600 million.

Google will be able to reuse much of the existing infrastructure at the former Hemlock Semiconductor site in Montgomery County, Tenn. The site will incorporate new technologies that will "make this data center the most technologically advanced in the world," Google said in a blog post last week.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will provide electricity. "Thanks to an arrangement with TVA, we’ll be able to scout new renewable energy projects and work with them to bring that power onto their electrical grid; another step toward Google’s ultimate goal of being powered by 100% renewable energy," Google says. The hypercloud provider has signed up 2 gigawatts of renewable energy supply contacts to offset power used in its data centers, "equivalent of taking nearly 1 million cars off the road." Google says it's the largest corporate energy buyer in the world.

When will the data center open? Could be years, Google says.

The first phase of the Clarksville, Tenn., project will employ about 70 people, including computer technicians, engineers, electricians, mechanics and others specializing in running a large industrial facility, according to a report on the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle. The selection process took 16 months, the paper said.

Google will work with local officials on a community grants program for science and technology education, clean energy and local Internet access, according to The Tennessean.

Hypercloud players, including Google and Facebook , have led the charge to New IP networks, pioneering SDN and commodity components and pressuring telcos and other traditional service providers to innovate. (See Google: 'Great' Data Center Networks Essential and Facebook Reinvents Data Center Networking.)

About Clarksville
Clarksville is the fifth largest city in Tennessee, with an estimated population of 146,806 in 2014. Notable Clarksville people include country music star Roy Acuff; rock musicians Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard; actor Frank Sutton, who played the sergeant on Gomer Pyle, USMC; poet Robert Penn Warren; and quite a few distinguished athletes.

The Monkees song "Last Train to Clarksville" references the town only because the name sounded good. But the band filmed parts of the music video in Clarksville.

Figure 1: New Digs Google is opening its 15th data center at the site of a former semiconductor plant in Tennessee. [Photo: Google] Google is opening its 15th data center at the site of a former semiconductor plant in Tennessee.
[Photo: Google]

Want to know more about the cloud? Visit Light Reading's Cloud Services content channel.

Figure 2: Imposing Building The Montgomery County Courthouse, Clarksville, Tennessee [Photo by Jugarum, GNU Free Documentation License] The Montgomery County Courthouse, Clarksville, Tennessee
[Photo by Jugarum, GNU Free Documentation License]

Figure 3: New School Montgomery Central High School [Photo by K. Johnson, GNU Free Documentation License] Montgomery Central High School
[Photo by K. Johnson, GNU Free Documentation License]

— Mitch Wagner, Circle me on Google+ Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profileFollow me on Facebook, West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].

About the Author(s)

Mitch Wagner

Executive Editor, Light Reading

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

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