Microsoft has expanded its data centre facility in Dublin for the third time, as part of a multi billion euro investment in its facilities here.

The addition to the data centre, which originally opened in 2009, is roughly the size of three football pitches.

Before the latest announcement, Microsoft had invested some €800 million in its data centre facilities here, including €500 million as an initial investment. The new expansion is expected to bring that figure to more than €1 billion.

“We are delighted to share details of further expansion of the Irish based data centre during our year of celebrations marking our 30th anniversary of investing in Ireland,” Microsoft Ireland managing director Cathriona Hallahan said.

The news comes as Microsoft said its data centre facilities in Middenmeer, the Netherlands, was operational. Both the Irish and Dutch centres will provide extra capacity for customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and currently serve as hubs for Microsoft cloud services, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online.

Commercial cloud services will also be offered from the UK, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said, starting in late 2016 with Microsoft Azure and Office 365. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will follow shortly after, he said.

“At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more,” Mr Nadella said. “By expanding our data centre regions in the UK, Netherlands and Ireland we aim to give local businesses and organisations of all sizes the transformative technology they need to seize new global growth.”