Google Credits Irish Weather For New Investment

"Ireland is trending," said a tweet from the IDA last week as it revealed that social media giant Twitter is to establish an international office in Dublin.

And confirmation of Ireland's "online boom" came at the end of the week, when search engine giant Google confirmed it's investing €75m in a new 11-acre data center in west Dublin.

Google raised some eyebrows when it said that one factor in its decision to choose Ireland was the country's climate.

The massive data center will house rows of computer equipment, which generate significant amounts of heat.

It creates a challenge to keep temperatures low inside the building.

The temperate climate in Ireland, which extreme lows or highs in temperature are rare, means it makes it cheaper to operate in Ireland than in many other locations.

"Once complete, the facility will rank amongst the most energy-efficient data centers in the world," the company said.

"Google will use advanced air-cooling technology that has been tested and perfected at Google's existing rented data centre facility in Dublin.

"This technology takes advantage of Ireland's naturally cool climate and uses outside air to cool computer instead of costly and energy-hungry air-conditioning units."

200 jobs will be created during the construction phase, and 30 mostly high-tech positions once the operation is up and running.

The data center will handle billions of Google internet searches, as well as Gmail accounts and Google Maps.

"The decision by Google, one of the most important multinational companies in Ireland, to locate a state of the art data center in Dublin is an endorsement of our policies in this area, and a sign of what is possible if we continue our focus," said Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton.

News of the investment came on the same week as Twitter announced that it had chosen Dublin ahead of London for its European expansion. Minister Bruton called it "a great win" for Ireland.

Although it didn't announce how many jobs were involved or exactly where its office would be, the news that Twitter had chosen Ireland further enhanced the country's reputation as a hub for web and social media companies.

Facebook, Zynga, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Apple have all chosen Ireland as their European headquarters.

Ireland's low corporation tax is being partly credited, along with a skilled workforce with a high number of third level graduates.