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Asian Nations Battle for Google Data Center
1sockchuck writes "Google is pitting foreign governments against one another in a battle for a major new data center in Asia. In the past week, both the prime minister of Malaysia and economic minister of Taiwan have said their countries are leading candidates for the Google project, with Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam also mentioned as contenders in an 18-nation site selection process. Google typically invests $600 million in each new data center. Tech companies often use multi-site searches as a tool to coax incentives out of local governments, which sweeten their offers to outbid rivals from other regions. Google's Asian initiative appears to be taking this strategy to a new level, coaxing heads of state to invest political capital in their lust for one of Google's mega-datacenters."
Except for the building itself, which just doesn't cost that particularly much (not that much more than any other industrial building) pretty much none of the money ends up in the local economy. If you build a data center in BFE, none of the infrastructure bits of the data center, such as the cooling, power, cabling, etc., can be locally sourced, as Random Rural County simply does not have vendors to do the work. Local firms can lay the pad, put up the walls, build the floor, provide the mains power, and build the small parking lot. After that, it is all specialty work that will have to be brought in from somewhere else.
Here in NC, the western part of the state (where the data center is being built) is currently undergoing a massive drought. The water required for large-scale chiller systems would be a fairly decent drain on the supply, if it were in place now. Even though they pay for it, that does not mean that there is no impact to them using it.
Local governments are stupid. They see "Google", and visions of their own little budding Silicon Valley dance through their heads. They just completely ignore the fact that there are pretty much no local benefits to such a facility. All they get is one more industrial building, a tiny handful of high-paying jobs (none of which will come from the local labor pool) and a slightly larger handful of decent jobs (also many of which will not come from local labor). Most communities would be better served by a corporate branch office of even a moderate size, or a smallish factory.
A $600M dollar facility WOULD trigger a decent tax infusion, if Google actually ever paid taxes on these facilities. They don't, as taxes are usually the first thing the governments waive to try and lure it there.
SirWired