Social networking site Facebook is to build its first data centre outside the United States in the northern Swedish town of Lulea, awarding an initial construction contract of US$ 121 million, reported Reuters. The data centre, set to be the largest of its kind in Europe, will take advantage of the climate in Lulea, among the coldest in Sweden, to cool tens of thousands of servers.

Swedish construction group NCC said it was part of a joint venture with two U.S. companies, DPR Construction and Fortis Construction, which had won a contract of US$ 121 million for the first of three server buildings in the data centre. The data centre will be the northern most of its size on Earth. It is Facebook's first in Europe and will serve more than 800 million site users.

Facebook said in a statement it chose Lulea, despite its remoteness some 1000 kilometers north of Swedish capital Stockholm, because its cold climate would be good for cooling and that it could provide environmentally friendly hydro-power.

The three server buildings will have an area of 28,000 square meters each. Construction takes place in three phases and begins instantly. The first building is to be operational within a year and the entire facility is scheduled for completion by 2014.