Copenhagen, Jan 20 (IANS): Social media giant Facebook announced on Thursday that it would build a new data centre in Odense, Denmark's third largest city in Funen island.

The new centre, which is Facebook's third outside the United States, would be one of the most advanced and energy-efficient data centres in the world and would be powered completely by clean and renewable energy, Xinhua news agency quoted Facebook's Director of data Niall McEntegart as saying at a press conference in Odense.

McEntegart told local news site Fyens.dk that the building of the new centre would cost "hundreds of millions of dollars".

"I am very happy that Denmark has managed to attract yet another big foreign direct investment," Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said.

"Although only 1 per cent of all companies in Denmark are foreign, they are responsible for 20 per cent of all Danish jobs," he added.

According to McEntegart, the 55,000-square-metre Odense facility would help the tech company handle "the richer content" of live videos and 360-degree photos.

The centre would provide 150 jobs when operational, McEntegart said.

It is not the first time that global business decided to set up data centre in Denmark. In 2015, US tech giant Apple announced it would open a data centre in the northern Danish city of Viborg.