- December 4, 2025
Earlier this month, Google announced an new undersea transatlantic cable system that will connect the United States to Europe — and one who will be anchored in Palm Coast, an investment City Economic Development Manager Craig McKinney said is a "landmark investment" for the city.
"Beyond that, what we hope is it's going to be a magnet for other industries like cloud computing, cybersecurity, AI, perhaps data analytics," McKinney said. "All who rely on good global connectivity."
The cable system, named "Sol", will extend to Santander, Spain and bolster capacity and reliability for the network of 42 Google cloud regions worldwide, according to Google's announcement. Once complete, Sol will be the only in-service fiber-optic cable between Florida and Europe.
Digital infrastructure provider DC BLOX will construct the new data center in Palm Coast, to be located on a 34-acre site in Town Center. The data center has been in the works since early 2023, said Chris Gatch, Chief Revenue Officer for DC BLOX.
"We wanted to be in the northern Florida region," Gatch said. "And that was really for diversification reasons from the cable landing stations that are already in existence on the east coast."
Available land was a big factor, he added. So was the lack of obstacles to route a cable to the ocean.
"Once you go through all those factors, and then we engage, we score very highly communities that want us to be there and that we feel like we can work with — they're going to support the project," Gatch said. "And so, community support is critical as well, and we felt, from our early engagements with the economic development team, we felt very good about that."
In addition to the data center campus, DC BLOX will be developing the bore pipes to the ocean and the conduit system from the landing site to the data center. The campus will be composed of six buildings: one Google-only building, a DC BLOCX building, two cable landing stations for Sol, a building to house Google's technology and another cable landing station for other cables that can connect to the site.
Gatch estimates the data center will employ about 12 people.
The data center will also diversify the city's commercial tax base, McKinney said.
"We hope that it's pushing the city as an emerging tech destination in Florida," he said.
Nationally, subsea cables are "absolutely essential" infrastructure for the U.S economy, and the global economy, Gatch said. A local data center will also lead to more fiber optics in the area, something his company has seen happen around its Myrtle Beach hub,
"We've already seen probably a couple hundred million dollars of fiber built in the region as a result of our project, and I would expect something similar over time in the Palm Coast area," Gatch said.
One misconception surrounding this data center project is regarding energy and environmental impact. Gatch said that data centers around the country have become somewhat controversial due to their usage of groundwater and amount of power consumed.
In contrast, the data center in Palm Coast will a refrigerant-based cooling system, and won't use groundwater. Plus, it's much smaller than most.
"Once we're done putting it in, you won't know we're here," Gatch said. "For better or worse, we don't employ a ton of people, so we're high taxpayers on a per-acre basis, with very little impact on local resources, and you get all the digital infrastructure benefits."
