Atos said it is building a Tier III data center in a former energy substation in Helsinki with help from local IT services company Academica Oy and Helsingen Energia that will use seawater for cooling while heating 2,000 surrounding premises.

Atos has 13 data centers used for delivering cloud computing services around the world. The new 2,000 sq m Suvilahti data center, which will be complete in August 2011 and ready for clients in spring of the following year, will be used to deliver services to customers across Europe.

Atos said the Finland site appealed because of its suitability for free cooling, and Finalnd's pioneering role in cloud services and data center technology.

It is not the first company to select Finland for its environmental benefits. Google released plans for its Hamina data center this year which will use water from the Baltic Sea for cooling.

Atos' plans to reuse its excess heat using Helsingen Energia's network is also not new.

District energy, as the process is called, uses centrally produced heat or cold which is then distributed through pipes to premises nearby in the form of water. The process is popular in Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

Academica Oy will help Atos build its data center in Helsinki. It has already won the Uptime Institute awarded it the Green Enterprise IT Award 2010 for using heat produced by servers for heating water and buildings with the help of local utility Helsingin Energia for another Helsinki project.

Atos' data center will have a capacity of 4MW and enough space for 80 server racks, 15 network racks and 20 storage racks. In total it will have 400 sq m of floor space, but cou8ld double this in future.

It is also installing a comprehensive 10GbE SAN network using EMC storage technology.

Atos operates in 42 countires around the world, where it offers consulting and technology services, managed services and systems integration. It is one of the worldwide Information Technology Partners for the Olympic Games.

In July this year the Paris Eurolist Market company purchased Siemens IT Solutions and Services GmbH for 176m euros and 250m worth of Atos shares. As a result, the company changed its name from Atos Origin to Atos.