Facebook has tapped a Swedish town about 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle to be the home of its first data center outside of the U.S. Located in the northern town of Lulea, Facebook said the server site will improve performance for European users.
“Facebook has more users outside the U.S. than inside,” Facebook’s director of site operations Tom Furlong told the Associated Press. “It was time for us to expand in Europe.”
Facebook currently has servers in California, वर्जीनिया, and Oregon and is building another complex in North Carolina. The company chose Lulea for its first European site because of its chilly climate, necessary for keeping servers cool. In the winter the temperature stays far below freezing and in the summer, it rarely climbs above about 80 degrees.
Lulea was also selected for its proximity to sources of renewable energy. The town is near a river with hydropower stations that generate double the electricity yielded by the Hoover Dam, Facebook told the AP. Powering the servers will require 120 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 16,000 homes, according to the Telegraph.
The new site can run entirely on renewable energy, but Facebook has plans to build 14 backup diesel generators capable of producing 40 megawatts of electricity in case of a blackout, the AP said.
के माध्यम से अमेरिका के बाहर पहले डेटा सेंटर के लिए फेसबुक की पसंद स्वीडन. | समाचार & राय | PCMag.com.