Google Picks Dominican Republic for First LatAm Data Hub

Google is building its first digital exchange hub in Latin America in the Dominican Republic, a $500 million-plus bet that a Caribbean island can become the region’s connectivity crossroads. The announcement was made Thursday at the National Palace by President Luis Abinader alongside Google’s VP of global network infrastructure, Brian Quigley.

The facility — spanning over 7,000 square meters — will be Google’s eighth such hub worldwide and its first in the Americas outside the United States. Construction begins in March with operations expected next year.

Why this matters

The Dominican Republic currently relies on a single aging cable for its direct connection to the U.S. mainland. The new infrastructure will host up to four international subsea cables, with two laid in the first phase linking directly to the continental United States. That triples direct connections and increases fiber-optic pairs tenfold — a massive jump in data capacity and a sharp reduction in latency.

The hub will connect to two Google Cloud regions in the southeastern U.S., where advanced AI and cloud computing services run. Over 95% of international data traffic moves through subsea cables, making their placement a competitive advantage for the economies they reach.

The bigger picture

Abinader signed Decree 113-26 declaring digital infrastructure a national priority and streamlining permitting for subsea cable systems. The government’s pitch is geographic: the Dominican Republic sits at the junction of data flows between North, Central and South America, a natural routing point that has been underserved by existing infrastructure.

Google’s Cristian Ramos, director of global infrastructure, noted that countries where similar hubs were built saw GDP increases of more than 1.5%. The Dominican Republic‘s internet traffic has already grown over 500% in five years, with more than 35% originating from the United States — yet much of its existing cable network is over two decades old.

The project fits Google’s broader push to expand subsea infrastructure globally, from the Nuvem transatlantic cable connecting the U.S. to Portugal via Bermuda, to connectivity hubs across Africa and the Indian Ocean. For the Dominican Republic, it is a chance to leapfrog from aging infrastructure to becoming a regional data gateway — the kind of strategic positioning that attracts data centers, AI companies and the high-value jobs that come with them. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Latin American affairs and financial news.

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