Google is investing $66.4m in its data center in central Taiwan, delivering on a promise to build its business in Asia.

The facility, located in an industrial park of Changhua County, opened in December 2013, and was built for $600m. The additional investment has been approved by the Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taiwan, according to Focus Taiwan.

At the Taiwan data center, Google is using a night-time cooling and thermal energy storage system, which is able to cut its energy use by as much as 50 percent compared with older facilities. These systems can also help to reduce costs by allowing companies to run air conditioning systems at night when power rates are cheaper and rely on stored cooling capacity during the day, when the rates go up.

Cool nights
The Taipei center is the first test of a night-time cooling and thermal energy storage system on Google’s global data center network.

The additional investment is being made through Google’s affiliate Kohl Holdings Limited, according to the Investment Commission.

According to a local newspaper, Google’s additional investment could also prompt Microsoft to consider building a data center in southern Taiwan to cater to Taiwan’s original design manufacturers.

Currently, Google operates two data centers in the Asia-Pacific region including one at Jurong West in Singapore and one at the Changhua County in Taiwan.

Several years ago, the search giant planned a $300 million data center in Hong Kong. However, it abandoned this plan, citing cost and difficulty of acquiring “spacious land” as reasons.

Joe Kava, vice president of data centers at Google has said Google will not build more data centers in Asia, yet will focus on growing its existing investments in the region instead. Its long-term $120 million commitment to Singapore and its additional investment to the Taiwan facility are cases in point.