Microsoft is looking to invest in the planning and construction of a new data centre at an industry site in Noord-Holland, Netherlands. The price tag on the project? 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion), which would see a new "green" data centre built on a site that will take up 40 acres worth of ground near the A7 highway.
Numerous countries were reportedly in talks with Microsoft to secure a contract, but the decision was awarded to the Netherlands. How would the data centre be power efficient and supplied by green energy? Local greenhouses use ground-coupled heat exchangers and produce more electricity than required, which will open up new doors for Microsoft's new power-hungry project. Energy supplier Tennet is said to be on the plan as backup.
Heat would also be transferred from the datacentre to the greenhouses, making it a rather lucrative deal for both parties. So what will this mean for consumers? We could well be looking at infrastructure being deployed for Xbox One and other services provided by the company. Adding a data centre to Europe will provide yet more scale to Microsoft's operations in the region. Microsoft already has a local data centre in Amsterdam for its Azure web services.
It's still early days for this new project, so it's worth noting this deal could fall through completely.
Source: Tweakers (Dutch); thanks, MartinSpire, for the heads up and translation!
Reader comments
Microsoft looking to invest $2.7 billion in a new Dutch data center
I hate nederland
Why not build it in the US? We need the jobs in this country.
PLEAAAAAAAAAASE !! invest some billions on your App store
A European data centre makes sense. After all, Europe is a much bigger market than US!
Population of Europe - 738 million - over double of that of US at 317 million.
You mean MS data center. The Netherlands already has one or two data centers by Google and a new one is being built for IBM.
Nice 'n dandy, but let's see a release date for the Xbox One in the Netherlands already.
MS is aiming big in cloud, the future is cloud!
2.7 Billion for a data center and can't make a Facebook app that works well.........
The FB app works well.
Maybe on the 1020 but it's rather buggy on my 720. And I'm not talking performance only, I'm also talking bugs with the Live Tile and notifications as well.
Can't they just open left side for daily apps, and add data to SD cards?
Cool
If only they could use all this technology to make the world a better place.
The technology that Microsoft provides could make the world a better place. It's the end users that decide to use it to search for 1D gossip or waste their time commenting on tech articles that result in the world going down the toilet.
Probably helps that they can spend the money overseas on the money they can't bring back to the U.S. in their shady scheme to avoid paying taxes.
U.S. goes overboard with taxes.. I'd avoid them to if I could.
Taxes in the US, particularly corporate taxes, really aren't that high. Comparable and even lower than many upper echelon countries.
Edited: Microsoft/NSA looking to invest $2.7 billion in a new Dutch data center
Really, Rich? It's spelt centre not center. You are forgetting your British ways...
Edit: I just noticed, you only misspelt centre in the title, the rest of the article is fine.
Just finished Steel Frame on a Data Centre near Corby UK. Supposedly for Lloyds Bank bit word has it Microsoft has a massive investment in equipment going in there. They are getting about a bit, it seems.
It's to house an overflow of virtual Weetabix from Kettering.
That's some serious computing power right there.
Yay! hope this means that the Bing Suite and features and speech recognition will get a major and quick boost for our country and language. This could be very good news. We've been behind with windows phone and windows store issues for too long, in my opinion.
OK, a Data Center in the Netherlands first. Now also give us a brick and mortur Microsoft Store ;)
Welcome to Holland. Get money spent money...
Ok, after this Africa should be in their list.
Might this mean some improvements to the Dutch version of Bing? Or am being I too optimistic now?
Nobody speaks dutch
A few million people beg to differ. Its spoken by about 20 million people
But why exclude people?
Actually it's 28 million...
Even more than 28m. There is no Flemish version of Bing so they default to the Dutch version as well.
28 million is including the Flemish and Suriname/Caribbean.
Like I said, nobody speaks Dutch. После фильма
Data Centers are rad. They should build one in a zeppelin to give cloud computing all new meaning.
LOL :)
Lol
Me don't care unless the datacenter is out of NSA reach.
Exactly what I was thinking.
worried the nsa might be interested in your high score on titan fall?
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. *crosses fingers*
NEWS FLASH:
No where in this solar system is out of their reach.
40 acres? That's a lot of LIVE and Skydrive!
Thanks for posting. Hope this deal will make it. would be very nice for xbox users and azure platform. Hope this will lead to lower pings for most european gamers!
I hope it is well above sea level.
Haha we'll keep it safe :)
That area is actually 15 feet below sea level.
MS datacenters are 100m water proof, so its ok :D
PT communications has just opened one of the largest Data Centres in the World in Portugal, which still has room for further expansion. Microsoft could take the opportunity to go there, thus sparing money in construction and taking advantage of what's already in place.
Oh, but I guess that would request the Portuguese government to have brains to allure Microsoft in...well...nevermind then. :P
Brain is the word....
something they lack of....
Or maybe you
#proudportuguese
it would be a great idea but well, our government isn't the best
+ Portugal
Ó deficiente mental, porque raio chamas o nome de Portugal ao assunto?
Nao gostas do teu país, passa-te ao caralho...
Que tem a merda da PT a ver com o artigo?
Estás bom da cabeça?
Dasse....
Ele só está a dizer que a PT abriu um grande data center, o que é verdade, e que o nosso governo podia trazer a Microsoft para cá mas só que estão ocupados a encher os bolsos de carnes e enchidos .. (Sorry for the portuguese)
Holland :D
If you're going to spend it, spend it wisely. This is money well spent.
+1
Microsoft got da $$$$
Microsoft haz got mucho mucho $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
better buy Blackberry and attack the corporate world on all fronts.
M$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Micro$oft
I'll take some of it off their hands...
Mo money mo problems micro$0ft got 99 problems but a fruit ain't 1. peice.