Ask HN: Why are Google data centers so far away form the company's customers?
Most of google's data center are located in SE of USA. The customers are distributed worldwide[1].
[1] https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/index.html
[1] https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/index.html
1. The vast majority of the United States population (density wise) is on the East side of the Country, not the west. If you pull up any population density map you can see it, yes California is a big state but the density of the population overwhelmingly is on the East side of the Country.
2. The cost of land and overall infrastructure as well as employment costs are far less in the South East than in the West or North East. Not to mention there are more favorable terms and less bureaucracy to build generally than say in California or New York.
Even if you look at the centers outside the South East you'll see they picked lower cost states, and what are likely states which will give better terms on taxes and land but still have the overall infrastructure to support them.
Just my 2 cents, but to me it seems like they are close to their customers based on population density.
*edit, added a sentence.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2018/04/google_tou...