The investment is part of Google’s plan to invest $1.08 billion in Germany’s digital infrastructure and clean energy by 2030. Credit: Tada Images / Shutterstock Google has opened a second cloud region in Germany as part of its plan to invest $1.08 billion in German digital infrastructure by 2030. Dubbed the Berlin-Brandenburg region, the new data center will be operational alongside the Frankfurt region and will offer services such as the Google Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, CloudSQL, Virtual Private Cloud, Key Management System, Cloud Identity and Secret Manager. Other services, such as Cloud Run, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud MemCache, Apigee, Cloud Redis, Cloud Spanner, Extreme PD, Cloud Load Balancer, Cloud Interconnect, BigQuery, Cloud Dataflow, Cloud Dataproc, Pub/Sub, are expected to be made available within six months of the launch of the region. “The new region brings high-performance, low-latency services and products to customers of all sizes, from public sector organizations to small, medium, and large enterprises and startups in Germany and the European Union,” the company wrote in a blog post, adding that enterprises in the region will also benefit from key controls that allow them to maintain high security, data residency, and compliance standards, including specific data storage requirements. The Berlin-Brandenburg region will be the company’s 12th region in Europe and 38th globally. Other Google Cloud regions in Europe include locations such as Milan, Paris, Zurich, Warsaw, Madrid, Turin, Belgium, Finland, The Netherlands, and London. AWS, Oracle, and Microsoft Azure also have at least one region each in Germany. Google Cloud has been investing heavily in opening more cloud regions to compete with larger rivals such as AWS and Microsoft. In March, Google launched a second region in the Middle East. In October last year, Google announced it would open new regions across Austria, Greece, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden to supplement the regions in New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand, and Mexico. Rival public cloud services providers, such as Microsoft and Oracle, too have revealed plans to expand their cloud region footprint. In July last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company would launch 10 new cloud regions over the following year. Similarly, in June 2022, Oracle CEO Safra Catz said the company expected to add another six regions in the following year. It launched two of these new sovereign regions in the European Union the following month. AWS, too, has been expanding its global cloud footprint. In November last year, it launched a second region in India, and in March it made a cloud region available in Malaysia. Related content feature Getting infrastructure right for generative AI Ensuring a cost-effective approach for delivering the massive storage, bandwidth, and computing resources necessary for genAI is no easy task. Here’s how innovative IT leaders are coping. By Stan Gibson Jun 03, 2024 8 mins Generative AI Budgeting Infrastructure Management tip 3 methods to forge stronger business partner alliances Want to build better tech partnerships? Creating and nurturing fortified ties built on mutual, goal-oriented collaboration can help. By Kate Vitasek Jun 03, 2024 6 mins ICT Partners Relationship Building IT Strategy feature IT leaders’ AI talent needs hinge on reskilling Most organizations see the need to revamp their training programs to address AI skills shortages — an approach that delivers intangibles hiring can’t provide. By Grant Gross May 31, 2024 7 mins Hiring Generative AI IT Skills feature Skills the Irish Government CIO uses to advance digital transformation In his eight-year tenure as CIO at Ireland’s Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Barry Lowry always had a vision of what digital government could look like. Here, he details how an approach built on transparency and innovation is conti By Ian Campbell May 31, 2024 8 mins CIO Government IT Cloud Management PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe