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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/19/apple_data_center_breaks_ground_in_prineville_oregon/

Apple breaks ground on massive Oregon data center

Facebook, Google, Amazon neighbor to use 100% renewable energy

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Data Centre, 19th October 2012 19:07 GMT

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Apple has broken ground on a massive new data-center complex on a bluff overlooking the town of Prineville, Oregon, home to just over 9,000 souls, as well as to another data center owned and operated by social-networking megagiant Facebook.

Portland's The Oregonian reports [1] that the first phase of the project will cost $68m, and involve constructing the first of two 338,000 square-foot buildings and two "data halls" inside of it. The plan is to eventually equip both buildings with 16 data halls.

The Oregonian notes that each of the two data-center buildings will be "twice the size of a typical Costco store." Considering that the size of an average Costco big-box retailer is said to be [2] around 141,000 square feet (13,100m2), the newspaper is exhibiting customary American Northwest modesty.

Prineville [3] is located 20 miles east of Redmond – no, not that [4] Redmond, this [5] Redmond – and is also home to a Facebook's first company-owned, custom-built data center [6], which broke ground [7] in January 2010 and is currently being expanded.

Apple bought [8] the 160-acre Prineville parcel in February of this year for $5.6m. Part of the deal that brought them to the high-desert town – aside from the dry air conducive to efficient cooling – was a 15-year property-tax break in exchange for Cupertino's promise to invest at least a quarter of a billion dollars in the facility and employ a minimum of 35 people.

Map of Facebook and Apple data centers in Prineville, Oregon

'Since we're neighbors, let's be friends' (source: Dan Aguayo/The Oregonian)

In addition, Apple has promised [9] that the Prineville facility will run on "100 percent renewable energy" upon opening – an important promise, seeing as how energy needs are a growing concern in the environmentalist-friendly Northwest.

"At Prineville we have access to enough local renewable energy sources to completely meet the needs of the facility," the Cupertinians say on their website [10]. For its part, Facebook says that it's improving [11] its facility's energy efficiency, as well.

The data center business in Oregon is an increasingly large sector in the state's economy. Google has a data center [12] in The Dalles that opened in 2006, Amazon is doubling-up [13] its facility in Morrow County, and Rackspace recently purchased land [14] near the Amazon facility, but hasn't yet finalized plans for building its own data center there.

Apple and Facebook are already data-center neighbors in North Carolina, where Apple built its $1bn data center [15] in the town of Maiden. Facebook's $450m North Carolina site [16] is located in that state's Rutherford County, about 40 miles as the crow flies from Apple's digs.

In Prineville, however, the two facilities will be much closer, almost next-door neighbors: they're right across State Highway 126 from one another. ®

Bootnote

Prineville is not only renowned for its Facebook, and now Apple, data centers; it's also where the $1.5bn, 430-store Les Schwab Tire Centers [17] auto-parts giant was founded back in 1952. As far as The Reg can discern, Les and Charles [18] are not related.