Alphabet-owned Google detailed a $1 billion investment to build a data centre in the UK, part of an ongoing effort to boost digital services in the nation.

The data centre will be situated in the south of the UK on a 33-acre site Google acquired in 2020. It will deliver cloud, mapping, search and collaboration services.

Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, explained the data centre will help meet growing demand for “AI and cloud services and bring crucial compute capacity to businesses across the UK, while creating construction and technical jobs for the local community”.

Porat said the data centre adds to other Google property developments in the UK, a multi-year research collaboration agreement with the University of Cambridge and deployment of a sub-sea cable connecting the nation to Spain and the US.

Google’s DeepMind AI research division is headquartered in the UK.

The company noted it has operated in the UK for more than 20 years and currently employs more than 7,000 people.