Facebook denies rumor of data center in Taiwan

Facebook is planning to build Asia’s largest cloud data center in Central Taiwan Science Park, bringing several billions of NT dollar to Taiwan, according to a report by Cens. The Central Taiwan Science Park Administration says it has no knowledge of such a plan and Facebook has denied the news. “We have no plans to build a datacenter in Taiwan,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

Facebook’s supposed data center will reportedly occupy over 20,000 pings (over 711 663 square feet). We can presume that its role will be to serve Facebook data to the hundreds of millions of the social network’s users in Asia. The social networking giant will provide the software for the data center but will purchase servers from Taiwanese contract manufacturers directly, bypassing brand suppliers to save cost.

The top three contenders are Wistron, Gigabyte, and Quanta. Given that Winstron has worked with Facebook in the past to supply servers to Facebook’s data center in North Carolina, it is currently considered the most likely candidate. The order is expected to be shipped in December.

Facebook, like any other tech company, often denies reports and rumors because it is not yet ready to make an announcement. Still, these are usually related to new products and features, rather than work space expansions. Either way, I’m labeling this a rumor until it becomes official, if ever.

See also:

• Facebook building server farm just south of Arctic Circle
• Facebook to move Seattle office next year, hire more engineers
• Facebook wants two Menlo Park campuses for 9,400 employees
• Facebook confirms it now has 800 million users
• Facebook confirms it now has 350 million mobile users