In February of last year, the Cupertino firm announced that it will be spending to the tune of two billion dollars on the construction of two huge data centers in Ireland and Denmark that will make iCloud and other services more performant and reliable for European customers. As per The Copenhagen Post, the Denmark facility is located in Foulum.
Foulum is a small town located just outside of Viborg, a city in central Jutland that is home to Aarhus University and agricultural research facilities. Additionally, the iPhone maker reportedly signed a multi-year clean energy deal with Aarhus University on a new biogas research and development project.
The 166,000-square-meter data center, one of the world’s largest, will run on 100 percent renewable energy and power Apple’s online services. The facility also files as the largest foreign capital investment in Danish history.
The country’s foreign minster, Kristin Jensen, said:
This is a clearly a benefit of Apple’s billion-kroner investment in the data centre in Foulum. The partnership is a good example of how our targeted efforts to attract foreign companies to Denmark are producing results.
The Cupertino firm has agreed to provide financial support to Aarhus University’s research into biogas and how usable energy can be extracted via fuel cells from agriculture waste, including straw and manure provided by local formers.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed in an interview with The Local that Apple has committed to an initial 20 million kroner ($3 million) grant to the university.
The Foulum data center should become operational some time in 2017.
According to Reuters today, Facebook will build its third data center outside the United States in Denmark, too. Facebook’s 184,000 square meter facility will be built in Odense, the birthplace of writer Hans Christian Andersen.
Facebook opened a similar data center in Sweden in 2013 and is currently constructing another such facility in Ireland.
Photos courtesy Henning Bagger/Scanpix: Apple’s sales director for northern Europe, Erik Stannow, presents plans and models for the Foulum facility (left); actual construction of the data center is already underway (right).
Source: The Copenhagen Post, The Local