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 news US lawmakers advance bill to close loopholes in AI export controls The law seeks to fill a gap in the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) mandate regarding AI systems, where it lacks clear legal authority. By Prasanth Aby Thomas May 23, 2024 4 mins Regulation Artificial Intelligence feature 10 most powerful ERP vendors today The Big 3 continue to differentiate themselves with broad ERP offerings, but the race to capitalize on AI enhancements and cater to industry-specific needs is having broad market impact. By Neal Weinberg May 23, 2024 13 mins Technology Industry ERP Systems case study Getinge’s digital transformation shows scaling and adapting in equal measure As Swedish medical technology company Getinge increasingly digitizes its products and adjusts to evolving global regulations, more demands are put on the company’s internal data environment. Here, CIO Pelle Nilsson explains how he and his team By Karin Lindström May 23, 2024 6 mins CIO Regulation Healthcare Industry feature From IT leader to tech spinoff CEO: How to win a CIO-plus role Associa CIO Andrew Brock expanded his C-suite mandate by parlaying his IT purview to helm proptech spinoff HOAM Ventures. Here’s his advice on doing the same. By Michael Bertha May 23, 2024 6 mins CIO Business IT Alignment IT Leadership 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