Welcome, Apple. Now we'd love to see you peering locally.

We're delighted with today's news that Apple has chosen Ireland for its second European data centre. The technology giant is to build a new €850m data centre in Athenry, Co Galway, which is expected to start operating in 2017. 

It is a great boost for Irish internet businesses and customers alike. Call us greedy, but we would love to now see Apple take the next step in engraining itself with Ireland's tech community...

On its merits

Clearly, this is not a selfless decision. Huge technology companies don't tend to make those. Apple has chosen Ireland on its merits because it works for them. The low corporation tax rate helps to push Ireland as a location, as does the big tech and startup scene. 

The team at Tibus clients IDA Ireland deserve a big pat on the back, too. Their innovative and proactive inward investment team have put in amazing work to attract precisely this sort of deal.

We suspect that the new cable crossings coming into Connaught from the USA have also been a major factor in Galway getting the nod.

What does it mean for Ireland?

Apple having a data centre in Ireland is hugely important for customers due to the improvements in performance it should bring with it. With the data now hosted in Galway, performance for iCloud, Apple TV, iTunes and app updates should improve for UK and Ireland users.

With that in mind, it would be brilliant if Apple also chooses to peer locally, too.  We would love to see them working with INEX on Ireland's industry-owned exchange.

As we say, just Apple being here will be a boon, but we probably speak for most of Ireland's internet community when we say that having them involved in local IP peering would be the ideal situation.

That would create better performance, which is what matters to Apple customers, ultimately.