With Internet search giant Google having recently built a $75 million data center near its European head office in Ireland's capital, Dublin, a Guardian report has pointed out that the country's cold climate is apparently perfect for companies like Google as it has the dual advantage of low running costs and high green credentials.

Since the running costs of mammoth data centers can be kept down if the weather is cold, the climate in Ireland is actually one of the key attractions for tech and online companies, along with the country's amazingly low corporation tax.

Google's decision to build its data center in Dublin was evidently based on the fact that the country's cold weather can increase the energy-efficiency of the company because less power is needed for keeping the servers cool. As such, the location of the data center in a cold place like Dublin can not only give a boost to Google's savings, but also enhance its green credentials.

According to Maurice Mortell - Managing Director of UK firm Telecity, which spent $131 million on its Dublin center in 2011 -, Ireland has become "a popular choice for data centers" because of the "cooling element" of the IT facilities.

Expressing a similar opinion, Google's Google's Global Data Centre Operations Officer Dan Costello told the Guardian: "It's not often that Irish weather is a cause for praise, but the temperate climate was very significant in choosing Ireland as a location for this (Google's) data center."