Facebook has broken ground on a new data centre in Fort Worth, Texas, which will be its fourth facility in the US.
The centre, which will be powered entirely by renewable energy, is expected to be completed by late 2016.
It will be situated on a 110-acre site and will house the latest in hyper-efficient Open Compute project hardware.
The social media giant will invest over $500m in the data centre and hire about 40 full-time employees at the facility.
Facebook aims to power its data centres with 50% of renewable energy by the end of 2018. The company said its infrastructure efficiency efforts have helped it save over $2bn in the past three years.
Facebook vice president of infrastructure Tom Furlong said: "Like its predecessors, we expect Fort Worth to be one of the most advanced, efficient, and sustainable data centers in the world.
"Thanks to our continued focus on efficiency and our investments in renewables in recent years, the carbon impact of one person’s use of Facebook for an entire year is the same as the carbon impact of a medium latte."
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said: "Facebook’s mission is to ‘connect the world.’ With locations in Austin, Dallas, and now the new data center in Fort Worth, those connections are made right here in the heart of Texas."
