OREGON, USA: Social networking giant Facebook announced that it would build a 117,245 square-foot facility at an estimated to cost $188.2 million in Prineville, Oregon to house a portion of the company’s data centre.

Data centre outsourcing considerations for 2010

"We are now ready to build our own," says Jonathan Heiliger, VP of tech operations, said in the company's blog.

The online social network has grown to more than 350 million users since its founding in 2004.

"We have come a long way from our roots in a Harvard dorm room, when Facebook was only available at some colleges and run on a single server. Now with more than 350 million people worldwide and our service and business continuing to grow, we must constantly scale our technical infrastructure to meet the demand and deliver you a fast, reliable experience. An important step along the way is to build a custom data center so that we can design it to meet our unique needs," he adds.

The blog also adds that Facebook will use several energy-efficiency technologies, including:
Evaporative cooling system
Airside economizer
Re-use of server heat
Proprietary Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) technology