Curious what the world’s most advanced data center looks like?
Mark Zuckerberg just gave us a peek inside Facebook’s Luleå data center. In a Facebook post this afternoon, he shared 16 photos as the first installment of a series of “rare photos of the most advanced technology Facebook is building around the world,” promising we can expect more in the coming months.
“It’s a key part of our global infrastructure, and it uses a variety of local natural resources to increase efficiency and save power,” the Facebook CEO wrote of the Luleå data center, which has a main building the size of six football fields.
The center is named after the small town it’s located in, which is less than 70 miles south of the Arctic Circle. This is no coincidence and actually serves a very important purpose for how the center operates. The temperature in the area is below 50 degrees most days, which Zuckerberg explains allows them to use large fans to pull in the outside air to naturally cool the thousands of warm servers inside. What’s more, the center is powered by a dozen hydroelectric plants that enable it to be 10 percent more efficient than traditional data centers and use almost 40 percent less power.
In the photos—shown in the above slides—you can see the facility itself, the equipment and architectural design elements. Another photo shows the original concept for the center, which was drawn on a napkin. Zuckerberg also includes fun facts with each photo (like that people use scooters to get around because of the size, for example) and also features some of the center’s employees.