Google LLC will invest approximately $9.5 billion in U.S. data centers and offices this year, about $2.5 billion more than what it spent during 2021.

Google and Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai detailed the investment plan in a blog post published today. According to the executive, the search giant anticipates that the initiative will create at least 12,000 full-time jobs in the U.S. by year’s end. Thousands of more jobs are expected to be created in Google’s business ecosystem.

Google will invest the $9.5 billion that it has set aside for the initiative in more than a dozen states.

Pichai detailed that the search giant plans to spend a part of the funds on a number of existing data centers that it operates in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The CEO also provided an update about Google’s data center development roadmap. A facility that the company has been building in Storey County, Nevada, is now operational and is set to be expanded down the road. 

“Our investments in data centers will continue to power the digital tools and services that help people and businesses thrive,” Pichai wrote. “And as we work towards running our offices and data centers on carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030, we’re aiming to set new standards for green building design — including pursuing certification through the International Living Future Institute for buildings like our new office in Sunnyvale, California.”

As part of its sustainability efforts, Google also set a goal of replenishing more water than its offices and data centers use by 2030. In parallel, the search giant has been deploying new technologies to help support its sustainability initiatives. Google has created software to reduce its technology infrastructure’s energy usage and, in 2020, launched an effort to replace one of its data centers’ backup generators with a first-of-its-kind battery-based system. 

Alongside its planned investments in data center infrastructure this year, Google will expand its office presence. The company said today that it plans to open a new office in Atlanta. Google will also make investments in a number of existing corporate hubs throughout Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Google in recent years has been expanding its New York operations at a particularly quick pace. Last year, the search giant inked a $2.1 billion deal to acquire St. John’s Terminal, a sprawling office building in Manhattan with 1.4 million square feet of office space. Earlier, Google bought the 1.2 million-square-foot Chelsea Market in Manhattan for $2.4 billion.

Overall, Google has invested more than $37 billion in its U.S. offices and data centers over the last five years. The search giant created more than 40,000 full-time jobs along the way.

Offices and data centers represent only one element of Google’s corporate expenditures. The search giant disclosed today that, alongside its real-estate investments, it spent $40 billion on research and development initiatives in the U.S. during 2020 and 2021 alone. Overall, Pichai said, Google estimates that it supported “$617 billion in economic activity for millions of American businesses, nonprofits, creators, developers and publishers last year.”

One driving factor behind Google’s real-estate investments, and its data center investments in particular, is the growth of its public cloud business. As more organizations adopt Google Cloud, the amount of data center infrastructure that the search giant must deploy to meet demand increases. Google Cloud’s revenue grew 45% last quarter, to $5.54 billion, thanks partly to a 65% increase in deals worth more than $1 billion.

Photo: Google