The internet search giant Google is to invest €3bn to expand its data centres across Europe over the next two years.

Its CEO Sundar Pichai made the announcement from Helsinki, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

He said this will bring the company's total investment in Europe's internet infrastructure to €15bn since 2007.

The investments support more than 13,000 full-time jobs in the EU every year, according to a study published by Copenhagen Economics.

Mr Pichai said: "As part of this new investment, we plan to invest another €600m in 2020 to expand our data centre presence in Hamina, Finland, bringing the total investment by Google to €2bn since 2009.

"Our investments will support approximately 4,300 jobs in Finland per year on average, over the next two years and beyond."

Google's data centre in Hamina, Finland | Image: Google

Google currently has two data centres in Ireland.

Earlier this week, the company made its biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy.

It has said nearly half of the megawatts produced will be in Europe, through the launch of 10 renewable energy projects.

These will see the construction of more than €1bn in new energy infrastructure in the EU.

These will range from a new offshore wind project in Belgium, to five solar energy projects in Denmark, and two wind energy projects in Sweden.

On Wednesday Mr Pichai announced the company's philanthropy arm, Google.org, was to give a €1m grant to the Irish children's charity Barnardos.

As part of the grant, a four-year education programme will be rolled out in schools across the country.

Over 4,000 workshops will be held in 1,000 schools, with Google and Barnardos aiming to reach up to 10,000 students in the first year of the programme and over 75,000 students overall.