Microsoft will continue its cloud push in Europe by spending $130m on expanding its mammoth Dublin data centre.
The company’s Dublin data centre cost $500m to build back in 2009 and serves customers across the EMEA region. The facility is used to host a number of Microsoft’s cloud services for European customers, such as Office 365, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing and the Windows Azure platform.
The new $130m investment will add an additional 112,000 square feet to the data centre, taking the floor space up to around 415,000 square feet. The building work will create around 400 jobs over the next year and once complete, a total of 50-70 people will be employed onsite to manage the facility.
Microsoft claims that the data centre will be 50% more efficient than similar data centres and will use 99% less water for cooling purposes.
Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said the investment was a reflection of growing demand for the company’s cloud services: "This investment shows where we are placing our bets for the future. As customers embrace Microsoft cloud services such as Office 365, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing and the Windows Azure platform, we are investing in regional cloud infrastructure to meet their needs."
"We are seeing increasing numbers of European businesses and consumers adopting Microsoft’s cloud services, and we are continuing to build new infrastructure and services in order to meet current and future demands," added Stephen McGibbon, chief technology officer, Microsoft EMEA.
Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny said the move will help Ireland’s fragile economy by offering work to local people.
"We welcome this significant announcement from Microsoft as Ireland continues to regain its international reputation for investment and business," he said. "Now central to our Action Plan on Jobs we are delighted that our strategy to become the country of choice for data centres is coming to fruition. We very much recognise the role that cloud computing can play in transforming our public sector as well as being a catalyst for economic growth."
