The world's largest search engine is at the forefront of the latest datacentre news thanks their announcement of a new facility planned for the United States. Currently the company operates eight different data centres in the U.S., Chile, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Belgium. The new facility will be located in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Google plans to design and build their new $200 million data centre to be the greenest and most energy efficient of all of their facilities. One of the reasons for choosing the Council Bluffs location is its access to renewable energy sources like the nearby Rippey wind farms. Google plans to invest an additional $75 million in the farms in a separate project to be completed by 2014. In the short term the data centre project will bring a large number of construction jobs to the area. The company will need all sorts of contractors including steelworkers, electricians, millwrights, etc. But the good employment news doesn't stop there. Once construction is complete there will be a large number data centre jobs that need to be filled. These jobs will be available for IT professionals and college grads looking to get into the IT industry. The entire project brings Google's total investment in the state of Iowa to about $1.1 billion. The current facility at Council Bluffs will be expanded as part of the new data centre construction. The completed facility will continue to house Google's managed services and applications like Google maps and Gmail. It may also be used to house an expanded infrastructure being set up to get ready for Google's future. Good for Iowa It's safe to say there are plenty of sites around the world Google could have chosen for its new data centre. You could make the case the company should expand its footprint in Belgium, or get in on the ground floor in Germany or the UK. But perhaps it's just better to say, “Good for Iowa.” Iowa is part of the U.S. heartland; state that has been hit especially hard by the now four-year-old recession. Much of the state's manufacturing base is gone, and only agriculture is keeping the area alive. On the other hand, Google representatives say they chose the site in part because of the quality workers found in the Council Bluffs area. It's a testament to a group of people who will work just as hard in the midst of recession as they did before it occurred. To those countries and other American locales hoping to get the Google facility we say this: the Council Bluffs project is certainly not the last one to be undertaken by Google. There will be more in the future, along with more opportunities to convince the company your location is the best choice. For now it is Iowa's turn to enjoy the good fortunes thrown their way. We hope the new data centre puts lots of people to work and boosts the local and state economy.