Google will buy up to half the electricity produced by one of Finland’s nuclear power plants as part of a record \u20ac13bn (\u00a311bn; $15bn) investment in the country’s AI infrastructure, the company announced.<\/p>\n
The US tech giant said the package would fund three new data centres, expand an existing site and support energy projects to power growing demand for AI services.<\/p>\n
“This is Google’s largest single investment in Europe and a testament to Finland’s leadership in responsibly building AI infrastructure,” the company said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“Google’s decision is a clear testament to our strengths,” Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in a statement.<\/p>\n
As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with Finnish utility Fortum to buy up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, TikTok announced a $1bn investment in Finland to build a new data centre in Kouvola, pointing to the country’s “strong digital infrastructure, clean energy mix, robust data governance and skilled tech talent”. <\/p>\n
Finland has emerged as an attractive location for data centres because of its cool climate, plentiful low-carbon electricity and relatively uncongested power grid. The colder temperatures can reduce the energy needed to cool facilities packed with computer servers.<\/p>\n
Technology companies are racing to secure power supplies as the AI boom drives demand for vast networks of data centres.<\/p>\n
The Google investment is expected to support more than 37,000 jobs during construction and boost Finland’s GDP by \u20ac3.6bn a year, according to Google. Construction is set to take place in 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n
“The value of the data economy extends far beyond direct investment into spurring innovation, research and development,” Orpo added. <\/p>\n
“Deepening our collaboration with Google will deliver lasting benefits for both parties.”<\/p>\n
Google will build new data centres in Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala, while expanding its existing facility in Hamina, which it established after converting a former paper mill in 2009.<\/p>\n
The infrastructure will help support products such as its AI chatbot Gemini, alongside services including Search, Maps and YouTube.<\/p>\n
Google said the investments also covered “clean energy projects, and dedicated nature and community funds to support local biodiversity, education, research, and workforce development”.<\/p>\n
“Google is proud to deepen our roots in Finland,” said Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google.<\/p>\n
“This investment underscores Google’s commitment to grow our presence responsibly, pairing the expansion of our technical infrastructure with new energy capacity, grid enhancements, and energy affordability initiatives,” she added.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Google’s parent company Alphabet raised its global spending plans to as much as $205bn as it sought to expand computing capacity for AI services.<\/p>\n
The agreement with Fortum provides long-term financial certainty for the Loviisa plant, which currently generates about 10% of Finland’s electricity.<\/p>\n
Fortum said Google’s commitment would support an investment programme aimed at extending the life of the nuclear station and increasing its generating capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google will buy up to half the electricity produced by one of Finland’s nuclear power plants as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-765464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765464","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=765464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}