Facebook wants to get in on computer hardware as well.
The company said it had teamed up with some of tech hardware's biggest names - including HP, Dell, AMD and Intel - to launch the "open compute project".
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the project aimed to offer specifications and designs for more power-efficient computers that are specifically geared toward running web services, shared openly with other companies.
"What we found over time is that a lot of the stuff that the mass manufacturers put out wasn't exactly in line with what we needed and what other social apps needed," Zuckerberg said.
By sharing design specifications, he said he hoped to increase availability and demand for the specialised servers.
Under the deal, Dell will build servers based on Facebook's technical specifications, while a company called Synnex will act as overall vendor for the systems.
The technology will power servers in the social network's first custom-built datacenter, in Oregon. Until now, Facebook has leased datacenters for its infrastructure.
The technical infrastructure that powers websites such as Facebook, on which more than 30 billion photos, videos and other types of content are shared by users every month, plays a key role in a service's performance.
According to Facebook, the new servers will be 38% more energy efficient and cost 24% less than off-the-shelf products used to power its service.
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