Facebook chooses Swedish town for the site of its first European data center

Social network giant Facebook has chosen the northern Swedish town of Lulea as the site of its first data center outside the U.S., reports Reuters.

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The data center, which will cost an initial $121 million to build, will be the largest of its kind in Europe. The facility will consist of three server buildings, each with an area of 300,000 square ft.

Despite its remote location (over 600 miles north of Swedish capital Stockholm), Facebook chose Lulea because of its icy climate, which will help to cool the tens of thousands of servers in the facility. It will also serve more than 800 million European Facebook users.

Unlike Facebook’s Oregon and North Carolina data centers that rely on utility (coal) power, the Lulea data center will be powered by renewable energy.

The first of the three server buildings is expected to be operational within a year, while the entire facility is scheduled to be ready by 2014, according to Facebook. It will require about 300 full-time positions during the first three years, the company added.

Image via Data Center Knowledge