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Inside Facebook's Arctic data center (pictures)

Facebook's first data center outside of the United States is up and running. The 290,000-square-foot facility in Lulea, Sweden is now churning through status updates, messages, and photos from users around the world.

Carrie Mihalcik
Carrie was a managing editor at CNET focused on breaking and trending news. She'd been reporting and editing for more than a decade, including at the National Journal and Current TV.
Carrie Mihalcik
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Facebook data center in Sweden

At the edge of the Arctic Circle, Facebook's latest data center is working through status updates, messages, photos, and more from the social network's 1.1 billion users around the world.

The new data center, the company's first outside the U.S., is a sprawling 290,000-square-foot facility in Lulea, Sweden. Thanks to the region's cool climate and relatively cheap hydro-electric energy, Facebook says it's one of "the most efficient and sustainable data centers on the planet."

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Open Compute Project hardware

The Lulea data center will exclusively use Facebook's own Open Compute Project designed server hardware.
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Cheaper, more efficient servers

Facebook claims that its Open Compute Project servers can be 38 percent more efficient and 24 percent less expensive to operate than those from traditional vendors used in data centers.
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Walls of data

A close-up look at Facebook's data center.
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Keeping it cool

The data center relies on the icy Nordic air to keep its servers cool.
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That's a lot of fans

A view of more fans in the data center.
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Pulling in Arctic air

Even more fans in the Lulea data center using the region's cold air to keep servers cool and running smoothly.
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Facebook's Joel Kjellgren

Lulea data center manager Joel Kjellgren takes in the Nordic air.
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Facebook's Niall McEntegart

Niall McEntegart, Facebook's regional data center manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, strikes a pose.
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What would Facebook do?

Words of inspiration on the walls of the Lulea data center.
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Lounge it up

A brightly colored lounge area in the data center.
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Swedish design

The Lulea data center clearly takes advantage of the clean, simple feel of Swedish design.
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At work in Lulea

Facebook employees hard at work in the Lulea data center.
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Outside the data center

A look at the outside of Facebook's first international data center.

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