Apple plans to invest €1.7 billion, or roughly $2 billion, to build and operate two data centers in Europe. The facilities, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland, will power Apple’s online services including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for the company’s European customers.The two data centres, powered 100 percent by renewable energy, each measure 166,000 square metres, and are expected to begin operations in 2017 .
Tim Cook (CEO, Apple): This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date.
Apple supports nearly 672,000 European jobs, including 530,000 jobs directly related to the development of iOS apps. Since the App Store’s debut in 2008, developers across Europe have earned more than €6.6 billion through the worldwide sale of apps.
Apple currently employs 18,300 people across 19 European countries and has added over 2,000 jobs in the region in the last 12 months alone.
[Image courtesy: Apple]