Google Cloud expands European presence with opening of Madrid region

Google Cloud is continuing to build out its datacentre footprint across Europe, with the opening of its latest cloud region in Madrid, Spain.

The public cloud giant said the Madrid region had been created with the specific intention of meeting the growing technology needs of Spanish businesses, in support of the country’s efforts to boost the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The region itself will be made up of several cloud zones, spanning multiple datacentres, for resiliency purposes, and will provide users with locally hosted access to Google’s core set of cloud services, including its compute and storage services, as well as its managed Kubernetes, data warehousing and data analytics tools too.

“The new Madrid region offers Google Cloud’s unique global infrastructure locally, creating new opportunities for digital transformation across every industry and making it easier for organisations at any stage of their cloud journey to securely deliver faster, more reliable customer experiences,” said Google in a blog post, announcing the news.

The opening of the Madrid region brings the total number of regions the company operates across the world to 34, with the infrastructure underpinning it built-in collaboration with Spanish telco giant Telefónica.

Luis Jimenez, sub-director of Spain’s National Cryptologic Centre, said the region’s opening would bring benefits for cloud users operating in the public sector, which are encouraged to use locally hosted offerings when building out their cloud strategies.

Having an in-country region will, therefore, lower the barriers to cloud adoption that many private and public sector organisations face.

“It is especially important for the alignment with the security levels that public sector organisations demand and as required in the National Security Scheme. They must take advantage of a cloud that is offered locally with the highest security guarantees,” he said.

“The new Google Cloud region in Madrid will allow us to achieve our goals and meet the expectations of our customers by offering them a premium user experience without neglecting data security and residency”