Facebook will open its first data centre in Asia in Singapore with an investment worth SGD1.4 billion. It will also open avenues for hundreds of jobs for Singaporeans. The data centre is expected to start its operation in 2022.
This will be the company’s 15th worldwide office. It will be located in Tanjong Kling (formerly known as Data Centre Park) in the western part of Singapore. The centre will be spread across 170,000 sqm space and will part of the company’s growing presence in Singapore and across Asia.
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Chan Chun Sing, Trade and Industry Minister of Singapore, said, “Facebook’s presence here speaks to how Singapore is increasingly connected to the world beyond the traditional modes of air, land and sea. It would facilitate the flow of talent, ideas and creativity into the country.”
“The new facility will also strengthen the country's role in data storage, which would augment its other strengths in data protection, intellectual property, data security and data analytics,” he said.
The Minister also added that Facebook’s decision to locate its first Asia data centre in Singapore is a significant milestone for the country.
Talking to media persons, Thomas Furlong, vice president for Infrastructure Data Centers at Facebook, informed that the new project will create thousands of construction jobs while the facility will require hundreds of operators ranging from network maintenance to logistics staff.
The new facility of Facebook will be hyper-efficient in relation to usage of water, energy and land. It will incorporate a liquid cooling technology that will minimise water and power consumption.
The new data centre of Facebook will comprise of 11-storey building whose façade will be made out of a perforated lightweight material that allows air flow.
In addition to this, the data centre will be built upwards, instead of outwards and is this another way of conserving land use.