Internet giant Google is building a third data centre in Singapore to meet rapid user growth in the region, bringing its total long-term investment in such facilities here to US$850 million.

The US$350 million (S$476 million) facility is in Jurong West, "just down the road" from its first two centres.

Google said the complex, which is expected to come online in 2020, will be built on a plot of land the size of the first and second centres combined.

Mr Joe Kava, vice-president of Global Data Centres Google, noted in an online post that the multi-storey building will be "one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly sites in Asia".

Machine learning will be leveraged to reduce energy usage, while recycled water will be used with 100 per cent of waste diverted from landfills.

The tech giant did not say how many new jobs the facility will create, but its spokesman said that "we are actively hiring, with openings listed on our jobs site".

Google, which employs about 1,000 people here, is advertising openings for roles like data centre technician, programme manager for data centre design and site director for hardware operations.

The company started building its first South-east Asia data centre in Singapore in 2011, with a second going operational in 2015. It also opened a Google Cloud Platform region last year to serve enterprise customers and other clients.

"The pace hasn't slowed. In the three years since our last update, more than 70 million people in South-east Asia started getting online for the first time, bringing the region's total to more than 330 million - that is more than the whole population of the United States," said Mr Kava.

"More businesses are getting online too, which has meant quickly growing demand for our expanding Google Cloud Platform offerings." Mr Kava cited Singapore Airlines, ride-hailing start-up Go-Jek, logistics firm Ninjavan and travel search engine Wego.

A data centre is made up of networked computers and storage that businesses and organisations use to organise, process, store and disseminate large amounts of data.

Security, reliability and connectivity are paramount in choosing a destination to set up a data centre, considerations which Singapore excels at as a data and technology hub, given its world-class infrastructure.