Search engine giant Google is to invest €600m in a huge data centre in the Eemshaven in Groningen province.

The investment will bring hundreds of new jobs to the province and put the Netherlands on the world map as a technological country, economic affairs minister Henk Kamp said.

Google has had a smaller server farm in Eemshaven for several years.

The new centre will host tens of thousands of servers and be as big as 40 football fields, according to Dutch media reports.

Eemshaven is close to a major internet junction, where 11 of the 15 internet cables linking the US and Europe come ashore. The location is also a few metres above sea level.