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Facebook Building World's 'Most Advanced' Data Center In Irish Village (thestack.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the building-it-better dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has announced it is building a new data center in Clonee, Ireland, a small village close to Dublin. The facility, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims will be one of the "most advanced and energy efficient data centers in the world," will be the social network's second outside of the U.S., and its sixth globally. The new center will be located just a 30-minute drive from Facebook's international headquarters in the country's capital. It is expected to cost €200 million and employ around 2,000 people during the construction phase. The company hopes to open the facility in early 2018.

32 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Can't be too much competition... by dohzer · · Score: 2

    How many other data centers in Irish Villages can there be?

    1. Re:Can't be too much competition... by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      given the number of companies basing themselves in Ireland for tax purposes it would not surprise me if their are a shit load.

    2. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      the irony is, of course, if I tried to avoid US taxes by living and working in ireland for irish companies, uncle sam would still cross the atlantic to tax me.

    3. Re:Can't be too much competition... by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Only the US has such insane tax laws for both its citizens and companies. most countries have broken tax laws with regards to companies though that let tax havens like Ireland happen.

    4. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Plenty. It has a fairly stable climate year-round and the cool sea air is used for passive cooling. The irony is that the common Irish people have one of the worst internet connections in the world.

    5. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      i don't want to renounce my US citizenship cuz I don't want to close off any open avenues in the future shoudl I want to return to US. Trump would block me with his wall!

      I just don't want to be double taxed or taxed at all, for that matter. That's why the revolutionary war was faught.

    6. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Irish village" here is a bit of a euphemism for "Dublin suburb". And the Dublin suburbs have plenty of datacenters.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    7. Re:Can't be too much competition... by gordguide · · Score: 1

      If you want to live and work in Ireland for Irish companies, then you could easily renounce your US citizenship, and have absolutely zero obligation to good old Uncle Sam whatsoever.

      And, since you and I both know that you're probably not making billions of dollars a year, it's extraordinarily likely that you'd get a tax credit for taxes paid to the Irish government for all or very nearly all of the taxes you "would" owe to Uncle Sam, which means that, in effect, you have to simply file a tax return each year, which says "I owe nothing."

      Stop whining.

      Unfortunately, you cannot "easily renounce your US citizenship and have absolutely zero obligation to good old Uncle Sam whatsoever."

      Under US Law, the US Government will refuse to recognize a renunciation of citizenship if it is determined the renunciation is solely to avoid US Income Taxes.

    8. Re:Can't be too much competition... by gordguide · · Score: 1

      If you want to live and work in Ireland for Irish companies, then you could easily renounce your US citizenship, and have absolutely zero obligation to good old Uncle Sam whatsoever.

      And, since you and I both know that you're probably not making billions of dollars a year, it's extraordinarily likely that you'd get a tax credit for taxes paid to the Irish government for all or very nearly all of the taxes you "would" owe to Uncle Sam, which means that, in effect, you have to simply file a tax return each year, which says "I owe nothing."

      Stop whining.

      Unfortunately, you cannot "easily renounce your US citizenship and have absolutely zero obligation to good old Uncle Sam whatsoever."

      Under US Law, the US Government will refuse to recognize a renunciation of citizenship if it is determined the renunciation is solely to avoid US Income Taxes.

      Also, in order to receive credit for taxes paid to a Foreign Nation, there must be a pre-existing reciprocal tax treaty between (in this case) Ireland and the USA. You know for certain such a treaty exists?

    9. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Xest · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      The reason companies like Facebook will pick Ireland is because it's a tax haven, and because it's where they amass many billions of otherwise unproductive dollars.

      If they try and take it somewhere more useful then they'll have to inevitably pay the tax that, if they weren't avoiding (possibly even evading in some cases) it, they'd have had to have paid in the first place.

      So they have the following choices

      1) They have it sat in an Irish bank not really doing anything, and possibly depreciating in value due to lack of worthwhile investments in country

      2) They bring it back to a more useful jurisdiction. By useful I mean one that has a high concentration of skilled tech professionals that can grow their business with new products and so on, or where they can use it to acquire other companies in that jurisdiction. The fact is, there is only so much you can spend in a country with a population of 4.6million before you've hired all the worthwhile tech professionals, and bought and invested in all the worthwhile companies. The combined fortunes of money stockpiled by big tech in Ireland is way more than is available to sensibly spend on so Ireland isn't that "useful" as a place to invest in people or businesses because there's just nowhere near enough to go around. The downside of moving it to a different jurisdiction is they'll lose a sizable proportion of it to tax, so they don't.

      3) They spend it on something in Ireland that doesn't need much man power and doesn't involve trying to find a company to invest in or buy up.

      This is an obvious case of option 3 - it's something they can build to use some of that stockpiled cash but that doesn't really cause too much of a problem in trying to fight with all the other hundreds of billions of stockpiled money in Ireland to get the resources for it - there's no point building a large high skilled software/product development office there for example because the population of Ireland will never ever be able to sustain the required levels of staff to make it work.

      You could push the Irish government to allow for a new immigration scheme to allow them to bring in the necessary talent but then you'd get all the unskilled natives moaning about how they took their jobs even though they were never talented enough or qualified to do those jobs in question in the first place, which is a shame, because that ruins it for everyone because it means such a centre can't be built and the handful of people in the country who are talented and qualified enough don't have that opportunity made available to them.

      So you're stuck with things like data centres that require few staff, and call centres that require unskilled staff, but even they're becoming less common in Ireland because places like India can provide unskilled staff far more cheaply.

      They may as well use the money somehow, and this is about the best option available to them. It's probably near a village for the simple fact that that local council offered them the best local rates or subsidy to bring the handful of jobs and wealth it creates to their area.

    10. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Muros · · Score: 1

      I just don't want to be double taxed or taxed at all, for that matter.

      You'll pay less tax in the US than here. If you're working in a good IT job, you probably get paid more in the US as well. Stay where you are.

    11. Re:Can't be too much competition... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking of moving to Ireland for a while (long story, I'm working around screwed up UK immigration laws). Can you recommend good places to go? I'm a software engineer, mostly doing embedded and some electronic design/debugging. I'd prefer to work remotely and don't really care too much about things like nightlife etc. I just want somewhere nice and not too expensive to live, with a good internet connection.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Can't be too much competition... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      I am a US citizen, living and working in another country as a programmer. My salary is a tad above average for where I live. Every year, I file with the IRS and get $1000 deposited into my account (child credit for my daughter).

      Basically, the IRS is paying me $1000 to file.

  2. well, can't be solar powered by turkeydance · · Score: 3

    not even a little bit.

    1. Re:well, can't be solar powered by Jomidar · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Not a bit

    2. Re:well, can't be solar powered by radaos · · Score: 2

      Since wind turbines supply a substantial part of the grid, 18.3% in 2014, Facebook may indeed be powered by the Irish windmill.

    3. Re:well, can't be solar powered by Chrisq · · Score: 1

      Fulled by pure pocheen

    4. Re:well, can't be solar powered by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      They have sunlight in Ireland, you know. TFA says it will be 100% renewable powered, so I imagine they will over-build capacity and contribute at least 100% of what they pull from the grid back again. Most likely some windmills and a lot of passive cooling.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. How advance it would be ? by Jomidar · · Score: 1

    As far as I know, Google owns the most advanced data center right now. And They never officially announced it. And now Mark claims about another one. What They mean by "most advanced and energy efficient data centers" ? Powered by solar Panels ?

  4. "most advanced" in what area? by magarity · · Score: 2

    "and employ around 2,000 people during the construction phase"

    Interesting the need to specify during the construction phase. I assume "most advanced" means after construction it just needs 1 part time repair tech for the killer robot security dogs.

    1. Re:"most advanced" in what area? by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Datacenters are very low employment areas, a handful of staff onsite (including security staff) can run a huge datacenter once operational. Their is not a lot of positives for local economies apart from the building phase.

  5. Most important power metric for their data centers by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

    Privacy invasions/watt.

  6. The Double Irish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

    The double Irish arrangement is a tax avoidance strategy that some multinational corporations use to lower their corporate tax liability. The strategy uses payments between related entities in a corporate structure to shift income from a higher-tax country to a lower-tax country. It relies on the fact that Irish tax law does not include US transfer pricing rules.[1] Specifically, Ireland has territorial taxation, and hence does not levy taxes on income booked in subsidiaries of Irish companies that are outside the state.

    The double Irish tax structure was pioneered in the late 1980s by companies such as Apple Inc..[2] In 2010 Ireland passed a law intended to counter such arrangements, though existing arrangements were exempt and lawyers have said that this change will cause no significant problems for multinational firms.[3]

  7. tax free I'll bet? by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    Let me guess.. it's like the Isle of Man which is tax free.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  8. Re:Sounds like another tax inversion by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    Once everyone submits to a full Facebook anal probe.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  9. World's "Most Advanced" Tax Dodging Scheme by nuckfuts · · Score: 3, Funny

    FTFY

  10. Re:Another US Tax Dodge Scheme by speedplane · · Score: 2

    I love Ireland, it's a beautiful country with amazing people, but these tech and pharma companies are shameful in using Ireland as a tax dodge.

    --
    Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
  11. Cloneed by lloy0076 · · Score: 1

    So when they duplicate their efforts somewhere else, it'll be cloned, right?

  12. Re:Another US Tax Dodge Scheme by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    The Irish government all also scum for stealing the social welfare of other countries citizens, as that theft reduces tax, revenues, citizens get reduced services and suffer and die. Ireland the filthy scum are feeding off the life blood of other countries citizens and they will pay a major price for that one day and that day is not that far off. It is not the tax cheating companies use Ireland, it is Ireland in the most corrupt fashion imaginable parasitically feeding off other countries economies.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  13. Re:Another US Tax Dodge Scheme by Muros · · Score: 1

    Not this bullshit again. Ireland has an efficient tax system where companies actually pay close to the tax rate that is advertised. Many countries in the EU have much higher official tax rates, but the actual rate paid after various incentives, remits and rebates is much lower. For example, the actual average rate paid in 2014 in Belgium, with an official corporate tax rate of 34.5%, was 6.5%. Comparing tax rates while ignoring all the ways various countries provide for ignoring them is pointless.

  14. Re:Another US Tax Dodge Scheme by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    Ireland does not generate the revenue, it just allows tax cheats to shift that revenue to another location to cheat on taxes, they are scum as this is done intentionally and they should be subject to international sanctions. Don't generate the revenue, then you are not entitled to the taxes on that revenue, all tax havens should be destroyed via economic sanctions.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  15. Re:Another US Tax Dodge Scheme by Muros · · Score: 1

    Ireland does not generate the revenue, it just allows tax cheats to shift that revenue to another location to cheat on taxes, they are scum as this is done intentionally and they should be subject to international sanctions. Don't generate the revenue, then you are not entitled to the taxes on that revenue, all tax havens should be destroyed via economic sanctions.

    Ireland does not make tax cheats, incompatibilities in tax laws across jurisdictions do. The Irish government really doesn't care where multinational companies get taxed, it knows the profits aren't being earned in Ireland. All it is interested in is those multinationals creating jobs in Ireland, and they have created a huge number.
    And if you want to go after tax havens, maybe look at some of the big ones, like Switzerland, or the British Crown Dependencies.