VIDEO SHARING APP TikTok has announced plans to build a secend data centre in Ireland as part of its plans to expand operations in Europe. 

The platform said its plans for a new data centre are in addition to a separate centre which it approved to build in Ireland late last year. 

In a statement published on its website, TikTok said it is at “an advanced stage” of finalising plans for its latest centre. 

The statement read: “Regarding local data storage, in line with the growth of our community, we’re looking to expand our European data storage capacity. We are at an advanced stage of finalising a plan for a second data centre in Ireland with a third party service provider, in addition to the site announced last year.

“We’re also in talks to establish a third data centre in Europe to further complement our planned operations in Ireland. European TikTok user data will begin migrating this year, continuing into 2024.”

The platform announced last year that it was creating an additional 1,000 jobs in Ireland which would bring its total workforce here to around 3,000 people. TikTok has been in Ireland since 2019. 

However, it has also faced significant fines for breaching Irish data laws. 

Late last year, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) has indicated “a preliminary range of fines” to be imposed on the Irish arm of social media giant, TikTok concerning its investigation into how TikTok processes children’s data.

The findings of a draft decision by the DPC to impose the range of fines is disclosed in new accounts for TikTok Technology Ltd which show that pre-tax profits at the Dublin based company last year increased 18 fold to $18m (€17.85 million) as the business ramped up its operations here.