Facebook has revealed today that it plans to construct a new data centre in County Meath in Ireland. The data centre will be the social media website’s fifth overall and second in Europe, but what will make this new facility particularly special is that all of the power it runs on will be renewable energy.
Rachel Peterson, Facebook’s data centre director, enthused that “Ireland has been a home for Facebook since 2007 and today’s planning application demonstrates our continued interest to invest in Ireland”. Indeed, the facility will result in 40 new full time jobs and hundreds more jobs while it is being constructed.
The new data centre will be located relatively close to Dublin, where Facebook already employs more than 900 people in a large office space at the docklands of the capital city of the Republic of Ireland. Martin Shanahan, IDA Ireland’s chief executive, has observed that Facebook’s new plans will boost its already “extremely strong” relationship with Ireland.
