Google Eemshaven data center, Groningen, Netherlands

Google's Eemshaven data center sits in the seaport of Eemshaven, in the municipality of Het Hogeland in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands, where the transatlantic fiber cable linking the United States and Europe comes ashore. Google announced it at a ceremony to break ground led by Economic Affairs Minister Henk Kamp, saying it would spend about 600 million euros over four years and employ 150 permanent workers.

The data center opened at the end of 2016, and in March 2018 Google said it would put another 500 million euros into expanding it, bringing its investment in the region to almost 1.5 billion euros. In June 2019 Google announced a further Eemshaven expansion on top of the 2018 one, alongside a new site at Agriport in Hollands Kroon, with a combined investment of more than 1 billion euros and 350 people to work at Eemshaven once it was running. The site is part of Google's europe-west4 cloud region, and Google invested 45 million euros in a water treatment plant that takes water from the Eemskanaal and supplies it to companies in the port for cooling, including its own data center, DCD reported.

Water and jobs have been the local questions. When Groningen province and Het Hogeland briefed councillors in 2021 on expanding the Eemshaven for new businesses, some parties said data centers were not their first choice because they create few jobs, and raised concerns about drinking water being used to cool servers. Google's Petran van Hugten told them the company was looking at using wastewater from sewage treatment plants as cooling water, and said Google aimed to stay and grow in the Eemshaven. The latest complaint is light: in August 2026 Google switched the data center's outdoor lighting on and off at night to measure how much light the site gives off, partly in response to residents who said the lights of large companies in the port bothered them. Google said the measurement was coordinated with the Omgevingsdienst Groningen, the environmental agency that supervises light emissions for the municipalities, and no date has been set for publishing the results.

The port is filling up around Google: QTS is building a second hyperscale data center, EEMSDC2, on Kwelderweg as part of a 1.4 billion euro expansion that doubles its Eemshaven capacity and adds 130 jobs. Google also opened a data center in Winschoten, elsewhere in Groningen province, in November 2025 to add capacity to the same cloud region, and broke ground on another at Westpoort in the municipality of Groningen in April 2024.

What comes next at Eemshaven is the result of the light measurement, which the Omgevingsdienst Groningen oversees for the municipalities. Room for more data centers in the port depends on the expansion that Groningen province and Het Hogeland intend, and on how the Provinciale Staten and the Het Hogeland council weigh it.