Swedish data center firm Bahnhof is dropping long-held plans for a data center in Stockholm, citing the current global security situation.

The company recently announced plans to develop a bunker data center in a former World War II bomb shelter in Gothenburg. Construction is already underway for a 2026 launch date.

However, with the new facility, the company is dropping long-held plans to develop a 21MW facility in Stockhom, known as Elementica.

“With the establishment of Bahnhof Bunker, the Elementica project is also being phased out,” the company said this week. “The world today looks completely different than when Elementica was first planned. Europe is now marked by full-scale war – with hostile neighbors both to the east and west – and our focus is therefore directed towards building the infrastructure that the future requires.”

“We have learned a lot from Elementica, but the future lies underground. Bahnhof Bunker is simply the answer to the times we live in,” added Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof. “Bahnhof Bunker is more than a data center. It is a bastion of digital freedom, security, and resilience, standing firm even if the worst happens.”

Though citing the current political climate, the ambitious Elementica project had seemed stuck in limbo for several years.

Announced around 2016 and set to be located in Norra Djurgårdsstaden in central Stockholm, the eight-story Elementica facility would have been Bahnhof’s largest facility. The data center would have offered rack densities of more than 25kW, reused its waste heat, and been equipped with solar panels.

“Elementica will be as practical and beautiful inside as it is outside,” a dedicated website to the project said. A design from NoPicnic for the project suggested the company hoped to house servers in a single vast circular multi-story data hall.

Originally due to launch in 2019, work on the data center at Midskogsgränd 11/Starkströmmen 1 seemingly never started.

Already a majority shareholder, Bahnhof bought all the remaining shares in Elementica in 2019. The facility is no longer listed on Bahnhof’s website.

Founded in 1994, Bahnof offers broadband, colocation, and cloud services. The firm also operates in Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.

The company has data centers in Stockholm (x3), Malmö, and Kista. The company’s Pionen data center is located in a nuclear-proof bunker under the Vita Bergen mountains on Södermalm in Stockholm that was built in the 1940s as a civil defence facility to protect government functions in the outbreak of war.