Facebook to build new $450 million data centre

Social networking giant Facebook will construct a new data centre in North Carolina, the state’s governor announced late last week.

The new centre, which will be Facebook’s second, will take 18 months to build and cost $US450 million. Once it is completed, the project is expected to provide between 35-45 full-time and contract workers.

“We are proud that Facebook chose to make North Carolina a ‘friend.’ The feeling is certainly mutual,” governor Bev Perdue said in a statement.

“You can’t pick up a newspaper, read a magazine or flip on the television without hearing more great news about our state. The investment and jobs at the data centre will be a boon to that region of the state, and will help confirm North Carolina’s distinction as a global business destination.”

Facebook is currently building a new data centre in Oregon. The company says that “as our user base continued to grow… we reached the point where it was more efficient to lease entire buildings on our own”.

“Think of a data centre as essentially one very large computer that contains the collective computing infrastructure to make web properties, like Facebook, work.”

Now that Facebook has well over 500 million active users, it makes sense that the world’s largest social network needs to expand yet again.