Middenmeer, Netherlands

Nestled in a business park north of Amsterdam, the Middenmeer data centre is helping Europe meet its sustainability goals. Using canal water to cool our servers and power purchase agreements (like a long-term renewable energy collaboration) to run on carbon-free energy, our local team of employees and contractors is making the internet run for everyone.

For general inquiries, email us at middenmeer@google.com.

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Google’s proud to employ local people who help our data centres function at their best.

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Jeroen de Schutter

General Director, Agrotheek, Netherlands

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Jeroen de Schutter

Middenmeer, Netherlands

General Director, Agrotheek

Agrotheek is a nonprofit that teaches farmers how to work with innovations to get healthy crops and good income with lower costs and higher yield. Agrotheek’s general director, Jeroen de Schutter, saw an opportunity in the land outside our Middenmeer, Netherlands, data center. He approached us about cultivating the land to use as a learning field to demonstrate new innovations to farmers.

At the end of the season, Agrotheek sells the crops and uses the profits to support the institutes in the community, like the local football team and choir.

“During the season when crops were growing, people from the Google data center liked what they saw and came once a month to view our fields. If we continue next year, we can grow tulips. It’s a beautiful garden in front of the data center.”

Jeroen de Schutter

General Director, Agrotheek
Marco Ynema

Googler, Site Lead at Eemshaven Data Center

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Marco Ynema

Eemshaven, Netherlands

Googler, Site Lead at Eemshaven Data Center

Marco Ynema, site lead at our Eemshaven data center in the Netherlands, is focused on growth, whether it’s for himself in his career, or in his proficiency as a musician and audio engineer, or in helping others.

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Marco’s background is in computer science and audio engineering. He had ambitions for a career in music. Looking for stability as his family grew, he opted to pursue computer science and IT roles instead.

Marco arrived at Google in 2005, contracting as a data center technician, but he was quickly hired a year later, moving to the U.S. to work with teams on site reliability engineering and software engineering. When he heard Google was building the Eemshaven data center, he shifted back to working within operations in the Netherlands. “The best place to raise my two daughters,” he says.

As a site lead, he's observed Google’s evolution in the community, becoming more involved in outreach, including building school curriculum. Marco was involved in launching an apprenticeship program for local secondary institutions, hosting students at the Eemshaven data center, which led to full-time roles for some.

In addition to seeing Google grow our commitments to the community, he enjoys helping people grow. “What I love most is to work together with my colleagues to build something and grow what we're working on and improve.”

And music still plays a leading role in Marco’s life. He played in multiple bands over the years. Marco even built a recording studio in his backyard, ceaselessly focused on growing his talent.

“As we grow our presence, we see more interactions with the local community because we are part of the community. I also see it as our obligation to actually ensure that we are not only reaping the benefits from being here in this country, but by contributing by increasing infrastructure and creating opportunities and jobs and other things.”

Marco Ynema

Googler, Site Lead at Eemshaven Data Center

Why we chose Middenmeer

An expert local workforce
Located in the heart of Europe
Preferred combination of traditional and renewable energy resources and infrastructure

Measuring our investment:
Middenmeer by the numbers

View the Netherlands
Impact Study: 2024 (English) View the Netherlands
Impact Study: 2024 (Dutch) View the Data Centre Impact
Report (English) View the Data Centre Impact
Report (Dutch)

Investment to date

€500M+

A hub for digital activity, our data centre in Middenmeer provides jobs for the local workforce and is an active community partner, supported by our data centre investment of €500 million to date.
Invested in digital access

€6.1M

Between 2017 and 2022, Google.org awarded €6.1 million in grants to Dutch communities to help strengthen science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and vocational programs, provide employment training for refugees, and offer COVID-19 support to small businesses.
Security training per year

330 hours

Each employee focused on security spends an average of 330 hours per year on training at the Middenmeer data centre.
Carbon-free energy usage

80%

In 2024, Middenmeer expected to receive 80% of our energy from renewable resources like wind and solar.

Offshore wind farms supply carbon-free energy to our Netherlands data centres and offices.

In 2024, Clear.bio, a Netherlands-based startup working to reverse Type 2 diabetes, attended the annual cohort of the Google for Startups Growth Academy: AI for Health program.

Jobs supported

7,250

Between 2017 and 2022, Google data centres supported the creation of 7,250 direct, indirect, and induced jobs in the country. Additionally, our Netherlands data centres offer an apprenticeship program through Samenwerkingsorganisatie Beroepsonderwijs Bedrijfsleven (SBB) that builds a pipeline for the next generation of IT and operations engineers, diversifies Google hiring, and actively bridges the gap between technical employment and education.