Google breaks ground this summer on a $300 million expansion of its massive data center site in Douglas County.

The 500,000-square-foot data center in Lithia Springs currently employs about 350 Googlers.  This expansion is expected to create 25 new full-time jobs.

Jason Wellman, Google's data center operations manager, says that as the Internet grows, so does Google.

"A hundred billion Google searches are performed every month," says Wellman.  "Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.  We must stay ahead of our users, so they can keep doing what they want and need to do online.  That's why we are expanding the data center here in Douglas County.  Data centers truly are the engines of the Internet."

Data centers are the hardware homes of all the information that keeps Google and all its applications running around the clock.

Wellman says this $300 million expansion is just the beginning of their possible expansion, but that there are no solid plans in place yet beyond this one.

The company has 13 data centers around the world.  Google also has an office in midtown Atlanta, and recently announced plans to bring Google Fiber, its gigabit Internet and TV service--to nine areas in metro Atlanta.

Gov. Nathan Deal says Google's presence is a "magic ingredient" that helps lure new corporations to Georgia.

"Increasingly, as I talk to economic development prospects, they cite the availability of high-speed Internet in this metro Atlanta region as one of the primary causes for them to come," says Deal.

Douglas County Commission Chairman Tom Worthan says that Google, with its unofficial slogan of "Don't be evil," has been a great community partner.  In a business world dominated by companies which are all to eager to make money in any way possible, says Worthan, Google stands out as an example of how to succeed without being "evil."

"Its official mission is to make information universally accessible and useful," says Worthan.  "Google accomplishes both of these missions in numerous ways, including free applications such as Google Translate, that we have on our Douglas County website and our school system website, as well.  This allows us to become a better community, because now we have many ethnic groups that make up our county."

The governor says the company's continued investment in Georgia will pay dividends.

"They're going to make it possible for fellow Georgians to have good-paying jobs.  Not just working for Google, but working for all of those other companies who depend on the services that Google makes available to them," Deal says.

Construction begins this summer, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2016.