

Google data centres planned and built in Europe. source:Flickr/Royal Pingdom

Need to find a Google data centre? Help is at hand, thanks to Royal Pingdom, which has analysed a Google Data Centre FAQ and used it to figure out where those centres - usually kept very close to the Googlechest - are.

If you include data centers that are under construction, Google has 19 locations in the US where they operate data centers, 12 in Europe, one in Russia, one in South America, and three in Asia. Not all of the locations are dedicated Google data centers, since they sometimes lease space in other companies' data centers.

(There are plenty more maps and pictures on the Royal Pingdom blog, if you need to know where the Google data centres in the Pacific are.)

It's interesting though perhaps not surprising that the US is so important to Google. And as Royal Pingdom points out,

According to Google's earnings reports, they spent $1.9 billion on data centers in 2006, and $2.4 billion in 2007. Google unveiled four new data center projects in 2007. Each has a cost estimate of $600 million, which will include everything from construction to equipment and computers.

Don't forget this is at a time when server sales have fallen off quite a steep cliff, where Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon are among the biggest buyers (though Google is reckoned to buy very cheap kit which it configures itself - including the use of Velcro). Google's a big buyer - but it's not helping server sales much.

All this also feeds into the question of how much energy gets used by each Google search (still unresolved), and how fast the power demands of the net are growing. Having more data centres isn't likely to reduce it any time soon - though Google says going carbon-neutral will. Are we sure there are enough wind turbines and hydroelectric dams to power all those new centres?