Nebius unveils $10 billion AI data center in Finland as Europe races to build compute infrastructure

Nebius unveils plans to build one of Europe's largest AI factories as region scrambles for compute

Nebius unveiled plans on Tuesday to build a new AI data center in Finland, which it says will be one of Europe's largest when up-and-running, as the region races to develop the compute infrastructure needed to power the AI boom. The new facility will be based in the Finnish city of Lappeenranta with a capacity of up to 310 MW. Nebius said it expects the data center to begin initially supplying customers by 2027. "We have been building in Finland for many years and are pleased to be expanding our presence here," said Nebius CEO Arkady Volozh in a statement. "Lappeenranta represents a significant addition to our global AI infrastructure build-out, and will make a significant contribution to achieving our capacity goals." It comes amid a slew of AI infrastructure announcements across Europe. French AI startup Mistral said Monday it had secured $830 million in debt financing to operate a data center near Paris. That came after a February announcement of a 1.2-billion-euro ($1.38 billion) plan to build data centers and compute capacity in Sweden. U.K. startup Nscale announced it had raised $2 billion at a $14.6 billion valuation earlier this month, with plans to develop AI data centers in its home market alongside Europe and the U.S. Meanwhile, 2025 saw MGX, Bpifrance, Mistral and Nvidia unveil plans for a 1.4 GW AI campus in France and Brookfield said it would invest up to $9.9 billion in an AI data center in Sweden.

What to know about plans for one of Europe's largest AI data centres

The facility in Lappeenranta, Finland, will offer up to 310 megawatts of power, the same as three hyperscaler data centres. Dutch cloud company Nebius said it is building one of the biggest AI factories in Europe. Data centres power the artificial intelligence (AI) race by providing the computing power, storage, and infrastructure needed to train and run advanced models. The factory, being built in the Finnish city of Lappeenranta, will have an energy capacity of up to 310 megawatts (MW), roughly equivalent to three hyperscale data centres, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) benchmarks for hyperscale sizing. It will have a closed-loop liquid cooling system that will regulate the computers' temperature, which will keep the water consumption to a minimum, Nebius said. The system will also capture any excess heat generated by the servers and send it to a local district heating network, which could redirect that energy to heat homes. The Lappeenranta factory will bring up to 700 jobs in construction and 100 permanent positions once the data centre is operational, the company said. The company is looking to supply at least 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of power by the end of 2026, with a long-term target of 3.3 GW by 2030, which Nebius claims is one of the "largest footprints of purpose-built AI compute" in the world. This will include another project near Lille, in north-eastern France, that will have 240 MW of power when it is operational. The Lappeenranta factory will be completed and available to customers in 2027. Europe had approximately 14,784 megawatts (MW) of power available across the continent's data centres in 2025, up from 10,539 megawatts in 2023, according to the European Data Centre Association. There are bigger projects than Lappeenranta that are in the works, such as a data centre project in Strängnäs, Sweden, that could offer between 350 and 750 MW of power, according to asset management firm Brookfield. Meanwhile, internet service provider Start Campus is building a 1.2 GW data centre hub in Sines, Portugal, which will be operational by 2030, the company announced in 2024.

Nebius furthers European expansion with $10 billion AI data centre in Finland

HELSINKI, March 31 (Reuters) - AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group on Tuesday said it was continuing its rapid European expansion with a 310-megawatt data centre in Finland, which would be one of the continent's largest with an estimated value of more than $10 billion as demand for AI computing grows. The Amsterdam-based company said capacity at its 10th site, which Finnish developer Polarnode is already building in Lappeenranta near Finland's eastern border with Russia, is due to come online in phases from 2027. Nebius has recently won supply contracts worth more than $40 billion in total with U.S. software giants Microsoft and Meta. It said the new site would be used to train AI models and run AI applications, and would not be tied to any one client. The data centre is one of Finland's largest infrastructure projects to date, Polarnode CEO Mikko Toivanen said in a statement, adding that it would support European data sovereignty. LOWER COOLING COSTS Finland is considered an attractive location for data centres because its low energy prices, renewable electricity supply and cold climate reduce cooling costs. Lappeenranta ticked all the boxes, such as quick land availability and grid capacity, Nebius found. "We think that the broader ecosystem environment is also very favourable here," Chief Communications Officer Tom Blackwell told Reuters. The Lappeenranta facility would be Nebius' largest outside the United States, surpassing the 240 MW project it announced near Lille, France, in February. Its largest operational European facility is also in Finland, a 75 MW site in Mantsala. Lappeenranta will make a "significant contribution" to achieving Nebius' capacity goals, which include securing more than 3 gigawatts of contracted capacity by the end of this year, Nebius CEO Arkady Volozh said in a statement. The site will use enough electricity to power up to half a million Finnish households and eventually cover roughly 10% of Nebius' contracted capacity. (Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)