After a "thorough review of feasibility, general market developments, and our business priorities," said spokesperson.
Google has canceled long-standing plans to build a data center in the Berlin-Brandenburg area of Germany.
As reported by Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung (MAZ), Google spokesperson Ralf Bremer said that it is withdrawing its plans for the data center "after a thorough review of feasibility, general market developments, and our business priorities."
Google purchased a 30-hectare plot of land between the L30 and A13 highways near the Schenkendorf area of Mittenwalde in 2022, planning to build a data center on the site.
Despite the change of heart regarding building its own data center, Bremer reiterated: "We remain committed to Berlin-Brandenburg and Germany-wide through our cloud regions in Berlin-Brandenburg and Frankfurt, as well as our data center in Hanau, and will continue to support Germany's digital ambitions in the future."
MAZ reports that a factor behind withdrawing construction plans at the site is the rapid progress of and demand for AI in the time since Google first looked at Mittenwalde, with power availability in the area not suited to AI compute needs. According to MAZ, even prior to AI shifting the technology landscape, the Google data center would have needed local power grid expansions.
The 30-hectare site is now available for new investments, with Google having withdrawn from the conditional purchase agreement.
Google opened a cloud region in the Berlin-Brandenburg area of the country in 2023, and also has a cloud region in Frankfurt that launched in 2017.
The Berlin region is based in data centers where Google leases space. Elsewhere in the country, Google has its own data center in Hanau, which opened in 2023, and one of three possible construction phases has been completed so far.
The Hanau data center was developed by Garbe and spans 10,000 square meters (107,600 sq ft). The facility reportedly has a combination of adiabatic and dry cooling modes to mitigate the risk of water scarcity.
The company also owns two sites in the Rhine-Main region of Germany, which are available for data center construction.
In October 2024, Google's europe-west3-c zone in its cloud region in Frankfurt suffered a 12-hour outage. According to the incident report, "the root cause of the issue was due to a power failure and cooling issue leading to a fraction of a zone being powered down, causing services to be degraded."
