Social media giant Facebook is creating 200 new jobs at its international headquarters in Dublin. The company is introducing new R&D and business innovation centres that previously only existed at its Silicon Valley headquarters.

Facebook, which already employs more than 1,300 people in Dublin, is planning to employ 1,500 people in the city by the end of this year.

The company says it has room to expand to 2,000 employees at its new Facebook Dublin offices.

Facebook has expanded its offices in the Silicon Docks part of Dublin and has taken a new building next door, bringing its footprint to 250,000 sq ft.

Today’s news follows the company’s announcement in January that Clonee, Co Meath will be the site for Facebook’s newest data centre – the second in Europe and first in Ireland.

As part of this expansion, the company opened the Facebook Partner Centre, the first of its kind outside the Global Headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

The space is designed to inspire business partners and stakeholders, learning more about Facebook’s family of apps and services, and also spark conversation about the company’s longer-term investments in connectivity, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to further achieve its mission to make the world more open and connected.

The long-term investment will support hundreds of construction jobs and dozens of long-term operational jobs.

“Our commitment to hire 200 talented people before the end of 2016 demonstrates our continued investment in Ireland and reaffirms Dublin as our international headquarters,” said Facebook’s country manager, Gareth Lambe.

“We’ve had an incredibly exciting start to the year with the Clonee data centre announcement, the opening of our first Partner Centre outside of Menlo Park and today’s news.

“We look forward to welcoming new Facebookers to the company to help them to build meaningful, lasting careers, as well as business clients to the Partner Centre to give them a look first-hand at how Facebook operates, both now and in the future.”

Growing a social media revolution from Dublin

There’s plenty of change at Facebook’s Irish base of late. Last month, it emerged that the social media giant had poached Storyful’s managing editor Áine Kerr to become Facebook’s head of journalism partnerships.

Over in the UK, the company has decided to stop routing its biggest advertising clients through Ireland, therefore keeping millions of pounds within the UK’s coffers. But anyone who thought this was more than an accounting change, involving shifting staff too, can think again.

Of course, it’s not all rosy for Facebook in Europe, with mobile operator Three signing up to a deal with Shine to block ads on its devices.

The move is part of an opening barrage by telecoms operators, which have been at loggerheads with over-the-top players like Google and Facebook that have made billions of dollars from advertising to mobile devices.

The bone of contention of mobile network operators is they have built the networks but aren’t getting any of the revenue being derived by internet giants.

Facebook, for its part, must now plan a revenue route around this ad block or, somehow, through it.

Its EMEA base in Dublin will no doubt play its part in this regard.

Inside Facebook’s new Partner Centre in Dublin (photos)

Additional reporting by Gordon Hunt

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Main Facebook image via Alexey Boldin/Facebook