AI cloud Nebius is constructing a data center in Lappeenranta, Finland.

Revealed by the company today, March 31, the data center is expected to offer up to 310MW and builds on Nebius' existing data center footprint in Mäntsälä, where the company operates a 75MW data center.

The first capacity from the multi-building campus is expected to be operational in 2027.

The project is being developed on approximately 100 acres of industrial land, and during construction is expected to create around 700 jobs. Once operational, 100 permanent positions will be created.

Arkady Volozh, Nebius' founder and CEO, said: "We have been building in Finland for many years and are pleased to be expanding our presence here. Lappeenranta represents a significant addition to our global AI infrastructure build-out and will make a significant contribution to achieving our capacity goals.”

City of Lappeenranta Mayor Tuomo Sallinen added: “Lappeenranta offers an increasingly attractive environment for innovation, with our universities playing a key role in developing top talent tailored to the needs of high-tech industries. The new data center will position our city at the forefront of Finland’s AI ecosystem and help meet Europe’s growing demand for artificial intelligence for decades to come. We’re proud that this project is being realized in Lappeenranta and in Finland, built sustainably on clean energy and driven largely by Finnish expertise.”

Nebius stated that the data center will be "predominantly low-carbon" and servers will be cooled using closed-loop cooling systems, and will be designed to integrate a heat recovery system for the local district network.

Lappeenranta is the regional capital of South Karelia in the southeastern interior of Finland, northeast of Helsinki. Scale42 operates a data center in Lappeenranta, and Polarnode is developing a 100MW campus in the region, which could eventually support 350MW of capacity.

Update -

Polarnode has now confirmed that it is developing the Nebius data center.

In an email to DCD, Polarnode's chairman Mikko Toivanen said: "It is fantastic that the first data center project in Lappeenranta and its surrounding area has advanced to the construction phase on an accelerated schedule, and that the leading AI cloud company Nebius will be operating the campus. In terms of scale, the project is historic, and this major investment is excellent news for the whole of Southeast Finland and, of course, highly significant at a national level as well."

Savills and Augusta are acting jointly as co-exclusive financial advisers to Polarnode to provide corporate finance advice and project sales agency services.

Founded this year, Polarnode is led by executives previously at Finnish energy company Ilmatar, which was founded in 2011 and develops wind and solar projects. The new data center firm claims to have six projects in development totaling more than 500MW.

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Nebius is aiming to have more than 3GW of contracted power by the end of 2026. In the EMEA region, the company has secured more than 750MW across its sites. The company is also working on a 140MW data center in Lille, France.

Earlier this month, Nebius landed a major contract with Meta that could see the social media giant spend up to $27 billion on Nebius' AI capacity.