Yahoo’s spring plans: 115 new jobs & an eco-friendly data center in New York

Yahoo is building a new customer care center and making big additions to an existing data center facility in Lockport, New York. The expansions will create 115 new jobs.

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The Lockport data center, Yahoo says, is a flagship of its energy-efficient data center design. The facility first opened in 2010, and today’s news will add to the company’s commitment to developing environmentally conscious data centers.

“Yahoo! is committed to being an environmentally responsible company, and we thank New York state and local authorities for working with us to ensure we continue to power our data center with clean energy,” said Yahoo central technology EVP David Dibble in a statement to the company’s investors.

The data center will use low-cost hydropower from the Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant as well as an outside-air cooling system to keep machines at optimal temperatures. All of this is part of the Yahoo! Compute Coop (YCC) architecture — what the company calls its hardware and infrastructure design.

Yahoo is one of a handful of large web companies placing more emphasis on efficient, innovative data center design. Google has long emphasized its green(er) data centers, and Facebook has taken the whole thing a step further with its Open Compute Project, a cooperative effort among some of the world’s biggest tech companies to create the best, cheapest, greenest data centers possible.

As part of Yahoo’s expansion into western New York State, the company will make a $3.5 million gift to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo over the next seven years.