Google will invest €600 million ($670m) to build a second data center in Hamina, Finland.
The new facility will be located in the old Summa paper factory, like its predecessor, opened by Google in 2011.
The national and local governments welcomed the news, according to YLE.fi. Permanent secretary of the ministry of economic affairs and employment Jari Gustafsson, said: ”Google’s significant data center investment is good news and an indication of a stable and competitive environment. This investment strengthens Finland’s digital infrastructure."
In Hamina, the municipal head Hannu Muhonen, said: ”This is the largest ever single investment in Hamina’s history and it will have a positive effect on employment during the construction phase and after. The investment also increases the attractiveness of the whole region. For over a decade, cooperation between Google and the City of Hamina has worked very well."
Hamina is located on the coast, some 145 kilometers east of the Finnish capital Helsinki and has a population of slightly over 20,000 people.
The existing Hamina facility was opened in 2011, and has been upgraded several times since, most recently in 2018, when Google opened a cloud region in Finland. The facility is cooled by sea water- a cooling system it inherited from the paper plant which preceded it - and Google has financed wind farms to help power it.
