Google is opening a new data center in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, today as part of what it says is a £5 billion ($6.81bn) investment in the UK over the next two years.

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves will open the data center, which has been under construction since last year. It is part of a string of investments unveiled by US companies in UK digital infrastructure this week, timed to coincide with President Donald Trump’s state visit.

The cloud and search giant has also announced a partnership with Shell to help manage its clean energy efforts in the UK.

Google’s new UK data center

At the time, Google said it was aiming to spend $1 billion ($730m) on building the data center itself. Its capacity has not been shared, DCD has contacted the company for further details.

Reeves said: “Google’s £5bn investment is a powerful vote of confidence in the UK economy and the strength of our partnership with the US, creating jobs and economic growth for years to come.”

The data center project comes as part of a larger £5 billion investment in the UK from Google, encompassing capital expenditure, research and development, and related engineering over the next two years. The figure includes money invested into DeepMind, the company’s UK-based AI research division.

“With today’s announcement, Google is deepening our roots in the UK and helping support Great Britain’s potential with AI to add £400 billion to the economy by 2030 while also enhancing critical social services,” said Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Google.

“Google’s investment in technical infrastructure, expanded energy capacity, and job-ready AI skills will help ensure everyone in Broxbourne and across the whole of the UK stays at the cutting-edge of global tech opportunities.”

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, added: “The UK has a rich history of being at the forefront of technology – from Lovelace to Babbage to Turing – so it’s fitting that we’re continuing that legacy by investing in the next wave of innovation and scientific discovery in the UK.”

Google’s Shell partnership

Google also named oil and gas firm Shell as its 24/7 carbon-free energy manager in the UK, an agreement it claims will “contribute to grid stability and the UK’s energy transition.”

This will involve Shell managing a power portfolio for Google that addresses the intermittency of clean energy generation through access to battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Shell will apparently optimize Google’s existing clean energy portfolio, including the offtake from its long-term agreement with Engie from the Moray West project in Scotland, storing surplus energy when production is high and releasing stored power back to the grid when production is low. Between the Shell alliance and other clean energy initiatives, Google says its UK operations will run on 95 percent clean energy in 2026.

Fossil fuel firm Shell will hopefully do a better job making Google more sustainable than it has done with its own business. Per a report from Reuters, its most recent annual report showed that its total global emissions for 2024 (covering Scope 1, 2, and 3) were 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent, largely unchanged from the previous year, and three times the CO2 emissions of the entire UK population.

At Waltham Cross, Google says it is using advanced air cooling to cut water use, and says the data center is ready to support off-site heat recovery via district heating, though such a scheme has yet to be set up in the area.

Google is also reportedly considering building a data center in Teesside, UK.