Apple is investing €1.7 billion ($1.93 billion) in two data centers in Europe, both running on 100% renewable energy, the company announced Monday.
The new facilities, each measuring 166,000 square meters (545,000 square feet) will be located in Athenry, Ireland, and Viborg, Denmark. Apple expects the data centers, which will power several of Apple’s online services, including iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri, to become operational in 2017.
“This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement.
The most interesting aspect of the two new data centers is Apple’s focus on clean energy and the protection of the environment. The facility in Ireland, for example, will provide an outdoor education space for schools in the area, as well as a walking trail, while the one in Denmark will capture excess heat from the equipment located inside and redirect it into the district’s heating system.
The investment in Ireland comes after the Government there decided to phase out the tax arrangement known as the “double Irish” that allowed companies like Apple, Facebook and Google to substantially reduce their tax liabilities.
In the press release accompanying the announcement, Apple also dropped a few interesting figures regarding its operations in Europe. According to the company, Apple now directly employs 18,300 people in 19 European countries (2,000 of those were added in the last 12 months alone), and supports nearly 672,000 European jobs.
Information from : http://mashable.com/2015/02/23/apple-data-centers-ireland-denmark/
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