Google’s €13 billion two-year Finland buildout is their largest in Europe. The real story is in the energy section: a 22-year power deal with Fortum that funds keeping the Loviisa nuclear plant — over 10% of the country’s electricity — running past its planned 2030 shutdown.
Google calls this its largest single investment in Europe — at least €13 billion for data centers and supporting infrastructure across four Finnish towns (Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos, Vaala) between 2027 and 2028, a framing independently repeated rather than just company spin. None of this is Google’s first rodeo here: it bought a defunct paper mill in Hamina in 2009 and has run it as a data center ever since, backing more than 600 Finnish suppliers — Nokia and Elisa among them — between 2023 and 2025 alone.
The Grid Trade
The sharper story is what Google bought with the energy money. A 22-year power purchase agreement with Fortum — externally confirmed to run 2028 through 2049 — bankrolls the life-extension program for Loviisa, the nuclear plant that supplies more than 10% of Finland’s electricity and employs somewhere around 570–580 people (Google’s release says 580; Fortum’s own site says 570). Without that money, Fortum has said the plant can’t keep generating fossil-free power past 2030. Google is also adding onshore wind PPAs in Ostrobothnia and Central Finland, pushing its Finnish wind total to 629 MW, and funding a 94 MW battery near Kajaani due online in late 2027 to help balance the grid when it’s cold and calm. The siting pitch — building in Finland’s north because the grid and carbon-free generation are already there, sparing new transmission buildout — comes from Google and gets an assist from grid operator Fingrid’s CEO. Worth watching whether that holds once four new sites and 37,000 jobs are actually built out, rather than taking it as given.
edited and authored by Dave with close collaboration by Claude