Facebook invests US$1bil to build first Asian datacentre in Singapore

SINGAPORE (September 6): Facebook announced on Sept 5 a planned investment of more than US$1bil (RM4.14bil) to build its first datacentre in Asia in Singapore, slated to open in 2022.

According to Reuters, the facility is planned to be built on the west of the island, adjacent to where Google is expanding its Singapore datacentres in an US$850mil (RM3.52bil) investment. 

Mobile growth, e-commerce and cloud computing demand is on the rise across the region. 

“This will be our first datacentre in Asia,” Thomas Furlong, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure datacentres, said at a press conference, as quoted by the news wire. 

Facebook said in a statement, cited by Reuters, that the 170,000 square metre facility represented an investment of more than S$1.4bil (RM4.22bil) and would support hundreds of jobs. 

Facebook currently has a number of datacentres in the United States as well as Ireland and Sweden, and it is building a facility in Denmark. 

“The datacentre isn’t country specific to where users are located...it’s a dynamic process,” said Furlong.