What better indicator that the Internet economy in Latin America is exploding than the news that Google is starting a major data center construction push in the region. This week Google announced that it will build its first data center in Latin America in Quilicura, Chile, near Santiago. The data center is expected to be up and running by the end of 2013.
The Chile data center, which will cost $ 150 million to build, will be as energy efficient as Google’s other facilities in the U.S. and Europe, and Google expects it to be “one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly in Latin America.” The facility will employ 20 people when fully constructed and many more during the construction phase (which just started).
The Green Data Center blog points out that Google tries to have at least three sites in a region to provide users enough availability, so asks, well, then where are the other two, or even three? Take a look at the locations for Google’s jobs in region, says the blog, and points to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Lima, Peru. So the Chile facility could be just the first, in a concentrated effort on Latin America.
As we’ve written about before, e-commerce and the Internet ecosystem is growing rapidly in some Latin American countries like Brazil. Part of that is because Brazil has a booming economy and more and more people can afford to buy goods online. Brazil has turned into a hot area of investment for web and mobile startups, too.
