Yahoo! has chosen Avenches over Yverdon for its planned European data center. The company has signed a deal to purchase 36,000 square meters of industrial land in the former Roman city for SFr 4.8 million.
The site is located next to the Nespresso factory under construction.
The cost of building Yahoo's European data center is estimated at SFr35 million. The company will employ 20 engineers. The center is expected to be very energy-intensive, using 20GW per hour, equivalent to the energy consumed by a city of 12,000 people.
According to the terms of the contract, Yahoo has the right to break the agreement with the city of Avenches if archeological problems delay construction. The city, in the Broye region, is known to have a lot of Roman remains underground.
Yahoo has not said why it chose Avenches over Yverdon, another city the American company was considering.
For Jacques Pasche, director of DEWS (Economic Development Western Switzerland), the Avenches site had a higher profile than Yverdon. The inexpensive land and cheap electricity could be other factors to explain Yahoo's decision, Pasche said.