Facebook to build $1bn data centre in Singapore

Facebook on Thursday said it will invest over $ 1 billion to build a data centre in Singapore, its first in Asia , powered by renewable energy and adapted to the city -state ’ s tropical climate .
The centre is expected to be operational around 2022 , and will host Facebook servers and centralise its IT operations , Thomas Furlong , Facebook vice president of infrastructure data centres , told reporters .

The 170 , 000 square metres ( 1 . 83 million square foot ) site in the land – scarce city -state will be stacked over 11 – storeys , and will come with custom features to cope with the steamy temperatures , which rarely drop below 25 degrees Celsius ( 77 Fahrenheit) .

These include a new state – of- the- art cooling system which uses water rather than air and will work better in the humidity , as well as a building facade made of perforated , lightweight material to allow for better air flow .

The company expects it to be run on 100 percent renewable energy , like its other data centres .

The Sg $ 1 . 4 billion ( $ 1 . 02 billion ) facility will be the first data centre designed and constructed by Facebook in Asia as the company increasingly relies on custom-built facilities to meet its needs, Furlong said .

It will be Facebook ’ s 15 th data centre worldwide .

Furlong said Facebook , which has 2 . 23 billion monthly active users as of the end of June , chose Singapore because of its robust infrastructure , availability of skilled labour and ease of doing business with the government.

Google has also built two data centres in the city – state , and announced this month it was starting work on a third , bringing their investment in the sites to $ 850 million .

Despite its popularity in Asia , Facebook has also faced criticism , particularly in Myanmar where it was used as a platform for the army and Buddhist hardliners to spread hate speech against the Muslim Rohingya minority .

( AFP )

Download Edujandon.com News App QR-Code

Edujandon.com - 24/7 News Upda

Developer: Edujandon Enterprises

Price: Free