Google Breaks Ground for its Third Data Center in Asia Despite Competition

Google– the internet search engine Giant recently announced the construction of its third data center in Asia. It is expecting increase in search speeds, improvement in reliability with its project despite the cut-throat competition it is facing.

In Japan and Taiwan, Yahoo has always been the top player. While Naver, Korea’s search engine has more than two-thirds market share in that country. Google had to close its business in China due to censorship and cyber-attacks two years ago. China’s own Baidu handles about 75 percent of the country’s Internet services.

Tech analysts say that Asian data centers, located physically closer to regional users, will make Google speedier and therefore more appealing. Google’s Asia-Pacific spokesman, Taj Meadows, says it is crucial for the 14-year-old company to grow along with the region.

“Asia is really the future of the Internet,” Meadows declared. “If you look at the just pure number of users, users in Asia now make up more than one billion of the world’s Internet users, and that’s nearly half of world’s Internet use. And that’s with a just over 25 percent penetration rate. That means that if you look at where the Internet is headed in the years to come, Asia’s really going to come to dominate.”

Google’s new data center in Taiwan’s estimated cost is around $300 million. It has already started work on similar projects in Hong Kong and Singapore. The total Asia expenses are expected to reach a $700 million.  The Taiwan data center once operational, will require very few employees .They are planning to hire just 25 people full time.
Tracy Tsai, principal analyst with the market research firm Gartner, in Taipei, says the data centers are crucial to Google’s performance over the next three to five years.
“Google needs to secure the possible capacity that will be required to capture the business opportunities and also to serve the Asia Pacific region fast in terms of the speed and the quality,” Tsai said. “So it does make sense a lot for Google to build a data center in the Asia Pacific to fulfill the future need in this region.”

Google signed a search engine technology deal two years ago with Yahoo in Japan that has reduced the rivalry in that country. Taipei-based high tech venture capitalist Jamie Lin says the search engine also has recently gained in Taiwan.

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