Facebook to invest $1 B on new Singapore data centre

Facebook's first data centre in Asia will use StatePoint Liquid Cooling system technology that will use water to cool the air and reduce water usage. 

Facebook is planning to set up an 11-storey, 170,000-square-meter data centre in Singapore at an investment of $1 billion.

Facebook data centres are some of the most advanced energy and water-efficient facilities in the world, and the social media giant's first in Asia will use the StatePoint Liquid Cooling system technology that uses water to cool the air as well as reduce water usage. Facebook also said it will use solar energy to power the building, and reduce water consumption by 20 percent. The data centre is expected to be operational by 2022.

Facebook data centres use outdoor air to cool facilities, and use 50 percent less water than a typical data centre.

“We are now taking our indirect cooling technology a step further by deploying a new evaporative cooling system that uses water instead of air to cool data halls. The StatePoint Liquid Cooling (SPLC) system, developed with Nortek Air Solutions, is the first of its kind to be applied to data centres ,” Facebook announced in a blog.

Once operational, the data centre will support hundreds of jobs, according to the company, and will augment Singapore's role in strengthing its data storage, analytics, and security functions in Asia.

Based on testing for different locations, Facebook anticipates the SPLC system will be able to reduce water usage by more than 20 percent for data centres in hot and humid climates, and by almost 90 percent in cooler climates, compared with previous indirect cooling systems.

The SPLC system is an evaporative cooling technology that produces cold water instead of cold air. Facebook and Nortek Air Solutions began development of the system in 2015, leveraging Nortek’s experience with membrane energy exchangers.