Microsoft will build four data centers in the greater Quebec City region over the next two years, an investment of some US$500 million which will be announced this Wednesday morning.

The four complexes whose construction will begin in the coming months will be located in L’Ancienne-Lorette, Donnacona, Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures and Lévis. They are in addition to the data center that Microsoft opened in Quebec in 2016. The four facilities will serve business customers in Quebec and Eastern Canada for the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service, second in the world in market share with 23%, behind Amazon’s AWS, according to Statista.

These data centers, according to the press release written by Microsoft, will increase Quebec’s IT capacities by more than 240% over the next three years. Across Canada, Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure will increase by 750%.

The use of “low carbon materials” during construction is promised, as well as the use of renewable energy and measures to reduce diesel consumption during operations.

“This increase in capacity will allow Quebecers to keep their data at home: it’s important,” explains Michel Biron, director of the public sector for Eastern Canada at Microsoft, in an interview.

These investments totaling half a billion US dollars demonstrate the importance of Quebec for the company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975, according to Mr. Biron.

“Just in Quebec, there are nearly 3,200 business partners who work on a daily basis with Microsoft technology […]. The Microsoft ecosystem in Quebec represents 58,000 full-time jobs with our various partners. Microsoft itself has just over 1,000 jobs in Quebec. »

The opening of a training center dedicated to cybersecurity in collaboration with KPMG Canada will also be announced, an investment of 1.7 million which will allow “free and practical training in French” for 11,000 people in its first phase.