Facebook changes its data centre status

FACEBOOK changed the status at its new €200 million cutting edge data centre in Clonee to ‘ground broken’ last week. And the social media giant has confirmed a second building will also be constructed on the site.

The massive project will generate hundreds of construction jobs, dozens of new long-term operations positions  and hundreds of millions of euro in new investment to Ireland.

The total size of the facility will be 621,000 sq ft – the equivalent of 14 Aviva stadiums – and it will be powered by 100 per cent renewable wind energy from Brookfield Renewable’s Irish operations.

When completed the data centre will become part of the Facebook infrastructure that enables billions of people to connect across the social network’s family of apps and services.

VP of Infrastructure at Facebook, Tom Furlong, said the company was ‘thrilled’ to have found a home in Clonee.

“Everything here has been as advertised – from the strong pool of talent for construction and operations staff, to the great set of local partners who have helped us move forward quickly and to the opportunity to power our facility with 100 per cent renewable wind energy,” he added.

“The new facility will be one of the most advanced and energy-efficient data centres in the world thanks to its cutting-edge Open Compute technology and use of 100 per cent renewable energy.

“The centre will be a crucial part of the infrastructure that helps Facebook connect billions of people around the world.”

Data centres deliver all of Facebook’s services to users and they’re some of the most complex operations ever created. The Clonee centre is expected to come online in late 2017 or early 2018.