Chile’s success in fostering an atmosphere of innovation and cutting-edge policies and programs that stimulate growth of the Internet have made the country an attractive site for Google’s latest data center and its first data center in Latin America.

“Chile offers an ideal combination of reliable infrastructure, a skilled workforce and a commitment to transparent and business friendly regulations,” Google’s website about its latest data center project read.

Google’s data centers are large-scale and cutting-edge, which makes them expensive projects in terms of both upfront investment and long-term operational costs. This means the company does not make its location decisions quickly.

Google builds data centers in places it finds it can operate them most efficiently, while being close enough to areas with high concentration of users of the company’s products to ensure low latency for them.

“We’re building this data center to make sure that our users across Latin America and the world have the fastest and most reliable access possible to all of Google’s services,” Google said.

Built in the municipality of Quilicura (near Santiago, Chile), the data center will employ up to 20 people once operational. The company expects to bring it online before the end of 2013.

Google if famous for implementing cutting-edge energy-efficiency solutions at its data centers. At its Hamina, Finland, data center, for example, it uses naturally cold water from the Gulf of Finland to cool the IT equipment inside.

The company said its Chilean data center will be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly ones in Latin America, but did not disclose any design details.