Social networking firm Facebook has announced plans to open its sixth data centre in Clonee, County Meath, which will be the firm’s first such facility in Ireland and second in Europe.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the new Clonee data centre will be the one of the most advanced, efficient and sustainable data centres in the world.
Powered by 100% renewable energy, the centre will be equipped with racks, servers, and other components that have been designed and built as part of a Facebook initiative, Open Compute Project.
The project is an industry-wide coalition of companies that aims to create energy and cost-efficient infrastructure solutions.
Covering 31,000m² of area, the new centre will see an investment of $215m and staff around 2,000, reported IBTimes.
The facility will leverage the country’s wind resources in order to power 50% of the firm’s infrastructure with clean and renewable energy by the end of 2018.
Currently, Facebook has three data centres in the US and is planning to open a fourth facility in Fort Worth, Texas. In Europe, the firm’s first data centre was opened in 2013 in Lulea, Sweden.
Reports also emerged that the firm is considering building a data centre in Asia.
Image: Facebook’s sixth data centre will be built in Clonee, Ireland. Photo: courtesy of Facebook.
