Google signed an agreement to spend over $3 billion to source carbon-free hydropower from Brookfield Renewable Energy for use in its data centres.

Initial contracts under the deal include a 20-year power purchase agreement for 670 megawatts of capacity from two hydropower plants in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Brookfield stated its facilities in Pennsylvania will be relicensed, upgraded or overhauled to meet the tech giant’s requirements.

The deal is part of a broader hydro framework agreement which allows Google to source up to a total of five gigawatts of capacity.

Google and Brookfield noted the agreement is the first of its kind and the world’s largest corporate clean power deal for hydroelectricity to date.

The agreement is part of Google’s efforts to power its operations with carbon-free energy in the face of surging power demands to build data centres and train AI models.

Rival Meta Platforms revealed plans earlier this week to invest hundreds of billions of dollars on AI compute infrastructure, which includes building colossal data centre clusters.