Google poured $1 billion into its data center operations in the fourth quarter of 2012, marking its highest quarterly investment ever in Internet infrastructure. The only time the company has spent more on capital expenditures was the fourth quarter of 2010, when it spent $2 billion purchase 111 8th Avenue, primarily for its office space.
The fourth quarter capital spending, announced in Thursday’s earnings report, boosted Google’s full-year investment in its servers and mission-critical facilities to more than $3.27 billion, illustrating the strategic importance of data centers in Google’s business. That’s a ton of money, but it’s actually down slightly from $3.43 billion in 2011.
Google’s capital expenditures fluctuate from quarter to quarter. The latest increase in spending reflects Google’s focus on expanding its existing data center campuses. The company is pumping $600 million into an expansion of its campus in
Berkeley County, South Carolina [1] and another $200 million into its facilities in
Council Bluffs, Iowa [2]. In the third quarter, Google unveiled its first data center project in South America, which will be located in
Quilicura, Chile [3].
Here’s a look at Google’s quarter-by-quarter spending on capital expenditures.
- 1Q 2007: $597 million
- 2Q 2007: $575 million
- 3Q 2007: $553 million
- 4Q 2007: $678 million
- 1Q 2008: $842 million
- 2Q 2008: $698 million
- 3Q 2008: $452 million
- 4Q 2008:$368 million
- 1Q 2009: $263 million
- 2Q 2009: $139 million
- 3Q 2009: $186 million
- 4Q2009: $221 million
|
- 1Q2010: $239 million
- 2Q2010: $476 million
- 3Q2010: $757 million
- 4Q2010: $2.55 Billion
- 1Q2011: $890 million
- 2Q2011: $917 million
- 3Q2011: $680 million
- 4Q2011: $951 million
- 1Q 2012: $607 million
- 2Q 2012: $774 million
- 3Q 2012: $872 million
- 3Q 2012: $1.02 Billion
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A capital expenditure is an investment in a long-term asset, typically physical assets such as buildings or machinery. Google says the majority of its capital investments are for IT infrastructure, including data enters, servers, and networking equipment. In the past the company’s CapEx spending has closely tracked its data center construction projects, each of which requires between $200 million and $600 million in investment.
Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/23/google-pours-1-billion-into-data-centers-in-three-months/
URLs in this post:
[1] Berkeley County, South Carolina: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/18/google-puts-another-600m-in-south-carolina/
[2] Council Bluffs, Iowa: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/11/19/google-iowa/
[3] Quilicura, Chile: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/06/google-building-data-center-in-chile/
[4] Rich Miller: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/author/richm/
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