Facebook announced it will expand its Data Centre in Prineville, Oregon, which is already the social media giant’s largest in the United States.
The move coincides with the company nearing completion of bringing a fibre-optic cable ashore in Tierra del Mar, Oregon. Crossing the Pacific Ocean, it will link multiple US locations, including Facebook’s huge data centre in Prineville, with Japan and the Philippines.
‘Facebook has the need to expand its global infrastructure because of the growth in the use of its apps and service’, Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an email.
The company said it will be expanding its site in the central Oregon town of Prineville by 900,000 square feet by adding two new buildings.
‘Once completed, this 11-building campus, which, at nearly 4.6 million square feet, is Facebook’s largest data centre in the US, will represent an investment of more than $2 billion’, the company statement said.
The California-based company first completed a 300,000-square-foot data centre in Prineville in 2011, attracted by the high desert’s cool nights that keep servers cool, and by a 15-year abatement on property taxes.
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Within months, it began building a second. More followed, all on a bluff above Prineville, a town of about 10,000.
Facebook’s statement quoted Oregon Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson, a Republican whose district includes Prineville. ‘‘They have shown what a partnership between a small community and large corporation can be in rural Oregon’, Breese-Iverson said.
Rick Steber, a Prineville businessman, was less enthusiastic.
‘I do realise there is a need for the services provided by Facebook and Apple centres, but it’s that old adage, not in my backyard’, Steber told the Bulletin, a newspaper in nearby Bend.
‘They are an eyesore when viewed from anywhere on the north side of Prineville.’
