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TikTok to splurge €420m on Ireland data centre to get Euro-data into Europe by 2022

Nothing but love for regulators, but nothing for hyperscalers despite previous Google Cloud entanglement

Controversial made-in-China social network TikTok has announced it intends to “establish a new data centre in Ireland, and our first data centre in Europe” and will spend “approximately €420million” on the project.

The outfit says the bit barn build will deliver on its plan to enhance security, reduce latency and provide lots of lovely jobs.

The company has also promised a “state of the art physical and network security defense system” and said it expects the data centre to be operational “by early 2022.”

The company has not said why it plans to build a data centre rather than just rent racks galore in a co-lo facility or sign a deal like its existing $800m multi-year arrangement with Google Cloud.

But it has said its Irish operations recently became the data controller alongside TikTok's UK entity, and is now the service provider for our users across the EEA and Switzerland. Which should mean that the new facility covers off the various regulatory factors required to work with personal data and user-generated content across the continent.

New of the bit barn build came after Microsoft bid for parts of the company , the USA and China continued to bat it around as part of their geopolitical brawl, India banned the app and Facebook baked a clone of TikTok into Instagram.

Where the company will be by early 2022 is anyone’s guess. ®

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