Google St Ghislain Belgium

The data center uses 100% renewable energy to power its operations. Google has invested heavily in renewable energy projects in Belgium, including wind farms and solar plants, to ensure that the facility is powered by clean energy.

Facility History:

In 2007, Google announced its plans to invest €250 million in constructing an energy-efficient data center close to the towns of St. Ghislain and Mons in Belgium. The center became fully operational in 2010 and was the first Google data center globally to run without refrigeration. Instead, it used an advanced evaporative cooling system that drew grey water from an adjacent industrial canal, which helped maintain peak efficiency for the computers and reduce energy usage.

In 2013, an additional investment of €300 million was announced by Google to construct a second phase of the data center to cater to the increasing European and global demand for its services. The expansion was completed in 2015.

Google revealed two significant developments in February 2018, with news of a €250 million data center expansion and the launch of a new solar plant on the data center site after a €3 million investment. A further investment of €600 million to construct a fourth data center on the campus was announced in June 2019.

In November 2021, Google announced its commitment to invest more than €500 million to expand its existing data center site in St. Ghislain, which will be its fifth data center on the campus. It also disclosed that it had acquired land in Ecopôle near Charleroi for a potential future data center. With this new investment, Google's total data center investment in St. Ghislain is almost €3 billion.