Facebook Inc. has confirmed on Thursday it will build a 147,000-square-foot data center in Prineville, Oregon.

It will be the first corporate-owned data center for the world's largest social networking service with more than 350 million users, according to the San Jose business Journal.

The data center will be used to store and route information posted by Facebook users. It will employ 200 workers during its 12 months of construction and another 35 full-time once operating.

“Facebook is always looking at ways to scale our infrastructure and better serve our users,” said Facebook spokesperson Kathleen Loughlin said last week.

“It should come as no surprise that, at some point, building a customized data center will be the most efficient and cost effective way to do this. However, we have nothing further to announce at this time,” said Kathleen Loughlin.

Facebook’s extraordinary growth has forced the company to continually invest in its infrastructure.

Tom Furlong, Facebook’s director of site operations, said the company underwent a “rigorous review process.”

Facebook Software