Facebook is the company behind a massive data centre development project in Iowa, according to local newspaper the Des Moines Register. 

Details of the development, codenamed "Project Catapult", emerged earlier this month. It covers 1.4 million square feet and the total cost has been estimated at $1.5 billion.

However, it was not known at first which company was behind the project.  

Citing "legislative sources", the Des Moines Register reported on Friday that Facebook is the company in question. 

It said that the state of Iowa had competed "fiercely" with Nebraska to be the chosen destination for the development. 

Facebook's current major data centre is in Prineville, Oregon, while its secondary facility is in North Carolina. In 2011, it opened an extremely energy efficient facility in Lulea, Sweden, which uses mostly renewable energy.

In August last year, Amazon Web Services' infrastructure engineer James Hamilton estimated that Facebook operates around 180,000 servers, up from 60,000 in 2010 and 30,000 in 2009.