Facebook Data Centre Goes Arctic For Chilling Effect

When you think of Facebook you don’t exactly think ‘environmentally friendly’. All those data centres burning through electricity, powering your virtual social lives. Facebook’s first push out of the US might be a tad kinder to the environment, using Arctic cooling.

Facebook’s first non-US data centre will be built on the edge of the Arctic circle in Northern Sweden. The server farm built in the town of Luleå, will not only have access to cheap and green power generated by dams on the riverLuleå — but it’ll also be able to forgo airconditioning for cooling and instead just use fresh Arctic air.

The European data centre will cost Facebook just under £100 million ($150 million), and should help you sleep peacefully at night, knowing that your social connections aren’t killing mother Earth too much. [FT via Gizmodo UK]

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