{"id":764894,"date":"2026-09-09T09:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764894\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T09:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:46:09","slug":"google-commits-15-billion-for-ai-infrastructure-in-texas-of-europe-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764894\/","title":{"rendered":"Google commits $15 billion for AI infrastructure in &#8216;Texas of Europe&#8217; Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/GOOGL\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> on Wednesday said it would invest at least 13 billion euros ($15.1 billion) into AI infrastructure in Finland, marking the tech giant&#8217;s largest single investment in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Finland has emerged as a key location for data centers amid the AI boom, with hyperscalers and developers eyeing its available land and power, which is in short supply throughout most of Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Google will deploy the capital through 2028, including into data centers and other supporting investments like energy projects, the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>It added that it has signed a 22-year life extension power purchase agreement (PPA) with Finnish energy company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/FOT-FF\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fortum<\/a> \u2014 which saw its stock jump 11% on the news.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Google is proud to deepen our roots in Finland with the company&#8217;s largest single investment in Europe, building on more than 15 years of sustained investment in Finland,&#8221; Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, said in a statement. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This investment underscores Google&#8217;s commitment to grow our presence responsibly, pairing the expansion of our technical infrastructure with new energy capacity, grid enhancements, and energy affordability initiatives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"headline0\"\/>Finland&#8217;s booming data center sector<\/p>\n<p>Several data center projects with potential capacities of hundreds of megawatts have been announced in Finland in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>Pure DC said in July it would invest 1.5 billion euros ($1.74 billion) to build a 110-megawatt campus in Finland, with the potential to scale beyond 550 megawatts. Arcem has plans for a site with up to 500 megawatts capacity. In March, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/NBIS\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nebius<\/a> unveiled plans to build one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/03\/31\/nebius-finland-ai-factory-europe-compute.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Europe&#8217;s largest AI factories in Finland.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Finland is seeing huge demand for AI infrastructure right now, I&#8217;ve heard it called the &#8216;Texas of Europe&#8217; at industry events,&#8221; Matti Lajunen, partner of real estate at Finnish law firm Hannes Snellman, told CNBC. &#8220;What we&#8217;re now seeing is weekly new inquiries for market entry into Finland from new players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Texas has become one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/09\/06\/ai-data-centers-are-transforming-rural-land-markets-fueling-backlash.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">leading locations for AI data centers<\/a> globally, with a number of huge projects <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/06\/22\/chevron-cvx-microsoft-msft-natural-gas-data-center.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/07\/28\/meta-blackrock-partner-on-14-billion-el-paso-data-center.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hyperscalers<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/07\/30\/nexus-data-centers-in-advanced-talks-to-secure-15b-for-google-backed-anthropic-data-center.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI labs<\/a>, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/META\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meta<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/MSFT\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft<\/a> and Anthropic. Google in November said it would invest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/11\/14\/google-to-invest-40-billion-in-texas-through-2027.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$40 billion<\/a> in Texas through 2027.<\/p>\n<p>A map showing data centers across the United States.<\/p>\n<p>CNBC<\/p>\n<p>Alongside Fortum, Google said it would &#8220;work to identify new business models to improve the commercial viability of potential new nuclear reactors&#8221; at its Loviisa site, a town in Southern Finland.<\/p>\n<p>Finland has also been an attractive location for digital infrastructure supporting social media workloads, with TikTok planning on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/09\/08\/tiktok-expand-data-center-capacity-finland.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">expanding its data center capacity<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The value of the data economy extends far beyond direct investment into spurring innovation, research, and development,&#8221; said Finland&#8217;s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. &#8220;Deepening our collaboration with Google will deliver lasting benefits for both parties.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google on Wednesday said it would invest at least 13 billion euros ($15.1 billion) into AI infrastructure in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,20690,733,4308,7796,84,273,3374,252616,158685,177432,170240,14647,10182,59441,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-764894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-breaking-news-technology","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-finland","tag-fortum-oyj","tag-invesco-qqq-trust","tag-ishares-expanded-tech-sector-etf","tag-ishares-global-clean-energy-etf","tag-meta-platforms-inc","tag-microsoft-corp","tag-nebius-group-nv","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}