Google Gears up for $600M Data Center South of Dallas

Google is targeting a southern Dallas suburb for a $600 million data center.

The tech giant plans to make an initial investment of $330 million later this year to kickstart the data center in Red Oak, which will help power its digital services like Google Cloud, Workspace Search, and Maps, the Dallas Morning News reported.

It will be Google’s second data center in Texas, with the first one being located in Midlothian, roughly 20 miles southwest of Red Oak. In 2020, Google purchased more than 165 acres at East Ovilla Road and North Central Boulevard, where the Red Oak data center will likely be built.

The Red Oak center will have just 30 full-time employees, as data centers are mainly used to store computing hardware. The exact size and timeline of the project remain unclear.

“We’re going to continue to grow and expand here in Texas,” Google’s Cris Turner told the outlet. “It’s the talent, infrastructure, business-friendly environment, ecosystem and partners that are so willing to support and help us.”

Data centers continue to sprout up in Ellis County and the area south of Dallas. Addison-based Compass Datacenters is building a $100 million, 250,000-square-foot facility on a 200-acre tract east of Interstate 35, also in Red Oak. The company also has operations in Allen, north of Dallas.

By the end of 2022, Dallas-Fort Worth had more than 2.2 million square feet of data center projects in the development pipeline, the outlet reported, citing data from Cushman & Wakefield.

—Quinn Donoghue