LinkedIn splashes $59 million on its first international data center in Singapore

The career-centric social network has chosen Jurong, in western Singapore, as the base for its 23,500-square-foot site, which has thus far cost LinkedIn SG$80 million ($59 million). It is the company’s sixth data center, and the first to be situated outside of the U.S., with other sites in Oregon, Virginia, and Texas, reports ZDNet.

According to LinkedIn, the site will handle all online traffic in the Asia-Pacific region, where its membership has doubled since 2013, as well as one-third of global traffic. With 85 million users in the Asia-Pacific alone — including 16 million in Southeast Asia, 34 million in India, and 7 million in Australia — not to mention 414 million members worldwide, that’s a lot of data.

The move marks an extension of the partnership between the social network and Digital Realty, whose building houses the new data centre in Singapore. LinkedIn also leased its Virginia and Texas sites from the company.

Speaking of the technicalities of the facility, LinkedIn’s director of data center services, Michael Yamaguchi, claims the company has managed to enable more servers within the site.

“The increase in the number of servers enabled the team to better utilize the port capacity on the switch, which is a more efficient cost-to-serve model,” Yamaguchi said in a statement. “The smart design features we’re implementing in Singapore will reduce the annual energy consumption of the data center by a magnitude that is equivalent to powering about 100 private homes in Singapore a year,” he added.

LinkedIn’s Asia-Pacific headquarters are already located in Singapore, likely making the country the natural choice for its first international data facility.