FACEBOOK HAS BEEN granted permission to construct a second building at its data centre site in Meath – almost doubling the size of the facility.
The new building brings the total size of the data centre to 621,000 sq ft, giving it a floorspace around the same size as eight Aviva Stadium pitches.
The data centre, which will be located in Clonee, Co Meath, is just the second of its kind for the company in Europe and the first from the social media giant in Ireland.
Facebook made the announcement at a ground-breaking ceremony for the centre today, when it signalled that construction on the project was under way.
Once built, it is estimated it will take only a few dozen employees to oversee operations at the centre – which will be entirely powered by wind energy.
Good for Meath
Facebook vice president of infrastructure Tom Furlong said the Clonee facility will be one of the most advanced and energy-efficient data centres on the planet, adding it would be a “crucial part of the infrastructure that helps Facebook connect billions of people around the world”.
Meath county manager Jackie Maguire said that the work it and other stakeholders like the IDA had done to attract Facebook to the county had “paid off”.
“This project will bring additional jobs to the county and a welcome stimulus to the local economy,” she said. It is hoped that the data centre will be operational by 2018.
Facebook recently announced that it intends to hire another 200 staff in Dublin, the company’s European headquarters, adding to the 1,300 people it already employs in Ireland.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and originally published on Fora, a new business publication for Irish startups and SMEs.
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