Facebook has allotted $1 billion for its new data center in Asia situated in Singapore. It was widely reported that this is going to be the social media giant's first data center in Asia. Jay Parikh, the company's vice president for engineering, however, announced that it is Facebook's fifteenth data center in Singapore.
While this is not actually its first data center in the region, it is the very first facility of its kind that is custom-built or specially engineered by Facebook for Singapore and in entire Asia for that matter. After the completion of this facility, Facebook will start opening more of similar center across the Asia Pacific as revealed to a job posting in the company's separate announcement.
Facebook said the center measures 170,000 square meters. To put that in perspective, Parikh highlighted that the amount of concrete the company will use for the building weighs 430,000 tons or the same weight as 20 of the main towers supporting San Francisco's famous Golden Bridge.
The social media giant stated that the facility is specifically tailored to Singapore with an 11-story building design aimed at conserving space in the country.
The data center will also be the first to integrate Facebook's StatePoint Liquid Cooling System as part of the company's commitment for its data centers to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy by the end of 2020. The technology will power and water consumption by 20 percent particularly in climates like Singapore's. Facebook will additionally develop new solar sources in Singapore to make the facility highly sustainable.
As mentioned, the data center is not Facebook's first in Singapore or in Asia. The company has been leasing a number of data centers in the country. At present, it has leases in place from San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust.
Jabez Tan, research director at Structure Research, estimated that the new facility can power servers between 120 megawatts to 150 megawatts. This is approximately closest to the megawatt capacity of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud data centers in Singapore.
Tan said big companies like Facebook prefer Singapore for doing business with because they may have recognized that the country has access to users in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Tan underlined that Singapore is the most stable and economically advanced country in the region.
Indeed, in its announcement, Facebook emphasized that it choose Singapore for the location because of its robust infrastructure and access to fiber. The country also has a talented workforce and community partners that include the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Jurong Town Corporation.
Facebook was also attracted to Singapore's policies that promote a business-friendly environment which respects contracts and increase ease of construction permitting. The company mentioned that World Bank has recently named the country as the number one country in Asia to do business.
The social media network is also looking forward to opening hundreds of jobs in Singapore and across Asia. The company is actually looking for a Construction Manager that will oversee the development of future data centers across the Asia Pacific region.
