Google readies Taiwan data center

Google appears ready to launch its data center in Changhua Country, Taiwan, as it begins recruiting for the third such facility in the region.  

The company put up at least seven job positions on LinkedIn to be located in Changhua County, including a datacenter security specialist, datacenter facilities engineer, as well as datacenter environmental and safety technician. 

The Web giant in September 2011 unveiled plans to invest US$300 million to build a new data center in Changhua County, spanning 15 hectares of land. The site would support its users in Taiwan and Asia, and was scheduled to go live by the second half of this year. At its groundbreaking in April 2012, Daniel Alegre, president of Google's Asia-Pacific operations, said the investment was part of over US$700 million the company had set aside for its expansion plans for the region, which included two other data centers in Singapore and Hong Kong. 

It added then that 25 full-time employees would be hired to support the Taiwan facility when it was operational, alongside "a number of" part- and full-time contractors in other roles. 

When contacted, a Google spokesperson in Singapore declined to provide any details: "We have nothing to announce at this time."

In announcing its plans for the Taiwan data center, the company said the site would be the first to feature energy-saving measures such as night-time cooling and thermal energy storage system.