Microsoft to expand Dublin data centre

Microsoft has confirmed plans to expand its "mega data centre" in Dublin, investing an additional $130 million in the facility.

The Dublin-based data centre, which began operation in 2009 with an initial investment of $500 million, will grow to 415,000 sq ft and 29.4 megawatts of power. Initially, the centre was 303,000 sq ft.

The centre currently provides computing capacity to customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It was the first Microsoft mega data centre built outside of the US, and was designed to support 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," said Microsoft's chief financial officer Peter Klein, on a visit to Dublin today.

"As we expand our Dublin data centre, we remain committed to efficiency and sustainability. Our expanded facility will be 50 per cent more efficient than traditional data centres, and will use renewable wind energy when available."

The investment underpins Microsoft's cloud strategy said Paul Rellis, managing director of Microsoft Ireland, who said he was "delighted" with the level of the investment.

"We have evolved from shipping software in a box to customers to delivering cloud services and this data centre is the engine that allows us to do that," said Mr Rellis.

This is just the latest data centre investment from a multinational in the Dublin area. Last year Google announced it was constructing a €75 million data centre in west Dublin while Digital Realty Trust was granted planning permission for a centre in the same business park.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the investment.

"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," he said.

"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."

Although the data centre itself won't directly create a large number of new jobs - the expanded centre will employ between 50 and 70 people in total - it is expected to create 400 construction jobs over the next 12 months.