A rumored Facebook data center in Ireland is now very much a reality, reported the Irish Times. The social media giant announced Monday that it will invest $220 million on an energy efficient data center and will submit plans to Meath council.
Facebook has applied for planning permission to build the Ireland data center. It will be the company’s second European data center, joining an energy efficient data center in Lulea, Sweden. The facility will be located in Meath, approximately a 30-minute drive northwest of Dublin, location of Facebook’s European headquarters.
“Ireland has been a home for Facebook since 2007 and today’s planning application demonstrates our continued interest to invest in Ireland,” said Facebook director of data center strategic engineering Rachel Peterson in a statement. “We hope to build an innovative, environmentally friendly data center that will help us continue to connect people in Ireland and around the world – while supporting local job creation and Ireland’s successful technology economy. We look forward to continuing our conversations with the Clonee community in coming weeks.”
Dublin is quickly becoming a major tech hub, housing presences of several major tech companies. A low corporate tax rate, fair climate, and increasing tech presence has the country in favorable position to keep winning data centers. As more data centers cluster, the talent pool and available shared resources grows.
Apple recently revealed plans for a $1 billion dollar project in Ireland located in Athenry, close to Galway. Apple is also investing in renewable energy projects there and across its footprint. Microsoft has a data center in Dublin, as do Google and Amazon. Digital Realty Trust launched a new facility in Dublin last year and TelecityGroup is also present.
Technology companies have created several jobs in Ireland, and Facebook already has job listings for the new location. The construction will employ hundreds while estimates of full time jobs range from 40-100. It will bring Facebook’s total jobs in the country over the 1,000 mark.
More than 1.3 billion people use Facebook worldwide and Facebook has had to scale its data centers in tow. Because the company has faced unique infrastructure challenges, it’s also innovating at the data center.
