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Facebook builds first European data centre
Facebook today announced that it will locate its third data centre in Lulea, Sweden, which lies near the Arctic Circle.
The data centre is Facebook’s first data centre in Europe and will serve more than 800 million users. “After a rigorous review process of sites across Europe, we concluded that Lulea offered the best package of resources – including a suitable climate for environmental cooling, clean power resources, available land, talented regional workforce and supportive business and corporate environment”, says Tom Furlong, Director of Site Operations at Facebook.
Facebook is the number one social media site in the world, with more than 800 million users globally. The Facebook data centre in Lulea will be the largest of its kind ever built in Europe, and the northernmost data centre of this magnitude on Earth.
The Swedish city of Lulea has the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, and is the coldest region in Sweden – a crucial factor since cooling servers is a major issue for data centres. Its historic industrial roots lie in pulp, mining and steel, which are still important for the region. The tough requirements set by these industries have over the years created a very robust infrastructure. When competing for the industries of tomorrow, this is an advantage of utmost importance.
During the last two years, local authorities have been working hard to make the establishment happen. And Facebook’s decision is a major milestone for the city; “the data centre marks the beginning of a new era, as we are now entering a digital industrial age”, says Mayor Karl Petersen, himself an enthusiastic Facebook user with more than 1,350 friends on the social network.
“The City of Lulea, the Ministry of Enterprise, and Invest Sweden has been tremendously persuasive in helping us make this decision. We look forward to joining the community and working with them to provide faster, more reliable and more robust service to people around the world who rely on Facebook to connect and share”, continues Tom Furlong.
The Data Centre will consist of three server buildings with an area of 28,000 m² (300 000 ft²) each. Construction takes place in three phases and begins instantly. The first building is to be operational within a year and the entire facility is scheduled for completion by 2014. About 300 full-time positions will be required during the first three years.
One key requirement from is that the data centre should run primarily on hydropower. “Facebook required a certificate verifying that the energy consumed by the facility primarily should come from renewable resources. Thanks to our main river Lule river, we can guarantee this. In fact, the river generates nine percent of Swedish electricity through hydropower”, says Petersen.
The establishment of the new data centre will make the region a major node for data traffic in Europe, and this fact has generated a new epithet for the Lulea region – The Node Pole. “We hope other global companies see the innate climate qualities and benefits of The Node Pole region, and choose to follow suit. Facebook thoroughly investigated a great number of locations all over the world, and found that this was the best place to be”, says Karl Petersen.
