Apple's '850 million Irish data centre finally gets the green light (AAPL)

Apple has been given the green light to build the first data hall for a huge new data centre on a197-hectare sitenear the west coast of Ireland.Irish planning body An Bord Pleanla gave Apple's first data hall the go ahead on Wednesdaydespite opposition from a number of individuals and local businesses.The board said the data centre will provide the area with a significant economic boost, while taking into account how hard it is to find sites that are able to accommodate huge data centres that need to be connected to the national grid.The data centre will be built in the middle of a forest owned by State forestry business Coillte just outside the small town of Athenry in County Galway.Apple's plans were approved last September by Galway County Council but they were held up after a number of appeals were made to An Bord Pleanla.Apple has received planning permission fromAn Bord Pleanlato build just one data hall but it hopes to build a total of eight on the site over the next 15 years. It will have to apply for planning permission every time it wants to open a new data hall.Apple wants to use the data centre to store European user data and to help power online services including the iTunes Store, the App Store, iMessage, Maps, and Siri for customers across Europe, according to a press releaseannouncing the development in February 2015.The Cupertino company was hoping to have the facility up and running by early 2017 but that target date now looks unrealistic given Apple is yet to start any building work.Some 5,500 of Apple's 18,300 European staff are based in Ireland, which is also home to its European headquarters. The company plans to hire an additional 1,000 staff in Ireland before 2017.Business Insider contacted Apple about the data centre completion date but did not immediately hear back.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Forget solar panels ' Elon Musk wants to build Solar roofs
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