Image: © wolterke/Stock.adobe.com
The Grange Castle Business Centre, where Google wants to build another facility, is home to data centres run by other tech companies including Microsoft.
Google is planning to increase its data centre capacity in Dublin through an expansion of its current Grange Castle site.
The company has revealed plans to build a 72,400 sq m data storage facility at the Grange Castle Business Park in Dublin 22, where it already has two data centres.
“We have issued the formal notice that we will be submitting a planning application to expand our existing data centre in Ireland,” a spokesperson told media. “This application reflects our ongoing commitment to meeting the growing demand for our services and supporting Ireland’s digital economy.”
The data storage facility will include data halls, offices and staff facilities. It will also include a new thoroughfare connecting Grange Castle Business Park South with Profile Park Road. Grange Castle is home to data centres run by several other companies, including Microsoft.
Google, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, employs more than 5,000 people in Ireland as of April. The tech giant recently appointed Waterford-born Vanessa Hartley as the new head of its Irish operations after predecessor Adaire Fox-Martin left to become CEO and president of Equinix.
Hartley has been with Google for around 10 years in various leadership positions. Prior to this latest appointment, she was the VP of Google EMEA’s large customer sales division, after serving as the MD of the division’s hub in Dublin.
Earlier this month, Google parent Alphabet faced a £13.6bn lawsuit brought forward by online publishers in the UK accusing the tech giant of anticompetitive behaviour in the adtech space.
Google has also faced accusations from the US Department of Justice that it operates a monopoly when it comes to search engines and online advertising. Closing arguments were heard in May and the company is now awaiting the ruling of the judge in this massive antitrust trial, which was previously described as the biggest since the US challenged Microsoft’s dominance in 1998.
In January, Google started building a new $1bn data centre in the UK to support the country’s growing cloud and AI demands.
Data centres are expected to consume nearly a third of Ireland’s total electricity by 2026, according to an International Energy Agency report published in January.
Figures released by the Central Statistics office last year showed that data centres consumed 18pc of Ireland’s metered electricity in 2022, up from 14pc in 2021. The figure was 5pc in 2015.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
