Dublin has been home to Google’s European headquarters for many years now, and they’re proud to have built one of their data centers in the city, too.
In September 2011, Google announced that they would invest €75 million to convert a warehouse on an industrial site in West Dublin into their third energy-efficient data center in Europe. To date, they’ve invested approximately €500 million to build and operate data centers on their Dublin site.
The facility, which became operational in September 2012, has an advanced air-cooling system that takes advantage of Ireland’s weather to keep Google servers running smoothly. As a result, the data center does not require any costly, power-hungry air-conditioning units. This is part of their effort to use as little energy as possible and operate in an environmentally responsible manner.
Dublin has the right combination of energy infrastructure, developable land, and available workforce for the data center. Google were able to take the same approach to construction as they did in Hamina, Finland, using local engineering and construction expertise to redevelop an existing building.