Apple in €1.7bn European datacentre move

By Business Cloud News

Apple is planning to build two new large datacentres in Europe – one in Denmark, the other Ireland – to support the company’s mobile-centric cloud services, reports Business Cloud News.

The facilities, each measuring 166,000 square metres and located in County Galway, Ireland and Viborg, Denmark will host a number of Apple’s services included iTunes Store, the App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for EU customers.

“We are grateful for Apple’s continued success in Europe and proud that our investment supports communities across the continent,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer in prepared remarks.

“This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date. We’re thrilled to be expanding our operations, creating hundreds of local jobs and introducing some of our most advanced green building designs yet,” Cook added.

The datacentres are expected to begin operating in 2017 and will be powered entirely by renewable energy, the company said, much like the firm’s other facilities in the US. It said the new EU facilities will have “the lowest environmental impact yet for an Apple datacentre,” with its Denmark facility being designed to capture and contribute excess heat for district heating in Viborg.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after Apple announced a large datacentre push in the US. At the beginning of February Apple said it would shell out more than $2bn to transform GT Advanced Technologies’ 1.3 million square-foot Arizona facility, previously used for the firm’s failed sapphire glass production initiative, into a massive datacentre to power its global network and cloud services.