Faster online shopping, faster photo uploads and better video conferencing are some of the benefits that Greek internet users will experience in their daily lives from the consistent development of the cloud service infrastructure in Greece. It is noted that Google is the third tech giant after Microsoft as well as Amazon which is making the move in Greece, one of the few countries in the world outside of North America where the three largest cloud services multinationals will have a local presence with infrastructure.

The news sparked optimism in the Greek market, both in terms of the size of the investment (although their budget has not been disclosed, it is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions) and the jobs that will be created.

In fact, research commissioned by Google for AlphaBeta Economics shows that the Google Cloud region of Greece will contribute a total of $2.2 billion to national GDP by 2030 while supporting the creation of more than 19,400 new jobs.

But beyond that, what practical benefit will the users in Greece get from setting up all these data centers?

OUR Diomedes Spinellis, professor in the Department of Administrative Sciences and Technology at the Athens University of Economics and Business, in an interview with “K”, gives a simple example: “Imagine that someone is trying to play puppets or puppets, and the figures are 10 meters away. This is a situation where we do not have data centers in our country. On the contrary, when he is behind the scenes (respectively, we use the data centers that are currently being built in Greece), he has much better control over the numbers.”

According to him, the creation of data centers will lead to an increase in the quality of digital services. It also means faster speed. “The services we use will respond faster. For example, when we browse an online store, when we watch a movie, when we buy a digital ticket, when we participate in a video conference, organize a trip, or upload photos to our personal cloud storage. A process that takes ten seconds today can now be completed in three.”

According to the professor, the role that local data centers will play in future applications related to the so-called “Internet of things” and includes autonomous driving, delivery of products using drones, the development of “smart cities”, as well as automated factories of the future.

“All these services need systems that will respond quickly. Therefore, having data centers next to each other is easier to design and offer,” explains Mr. Spinellis.

As to whether it all comes down to “faster internet” in the end, he replies: “Internet speed has two important dimensions: our own connection and the connection of someone who provides us with data or a service. When we say “fast internet” we often mean the last step, how fast we connect to an internet connection provider. From the provider comes the background. Local data centers decide
other end issues are how quickly the services we use can reach us. In a nutshell: we will see a better response to online services that need it.”

Google is the fourth tech giant after Microsoft, Amazon and Digital Realty to develop cloud infrastructure in Greece, which will now become one of the few countries in the world outside of North America where they will have a local presence with the infrastructure of the three largest multinational cloud service providers. .