Inside Facebook's Arctic data center (pictures)

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."

The Lulea data center will exclusively use Facebook's own Open Compute Project designed server hardware.

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.

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

The data center relies on the icy Nordic air to keep its servers cool.

A view of more fans in the data center.

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

Lulea data center manager Joel Kjellgren takes in the Nordic air.

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

Words of inspiration on the walls of the Lulea data center.

A brightly colored lounge area in the data center.

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

Facebook employees hard at work in the Lulea data center.

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