Social media short video platform, TikTok, plans a €1 billion ($1.16 billion) investment to build the company’s second data centre in Finland. The group on April 7 said the new facility would be in Lahti in southern Finland, and would have capacity of 50mw, scalable to 128mw.
TikTok said its expansion in Finland was part of the company’s €12 billion ($14.02 billion) European data sovereignty initiative. It also noted that the continuing buildout was part of its strategy to strengthen data protection for its more than 200-million users in Europe. The new investment is handy as the company experiences growing scrutiny over security and data privacy for its users.
The Chinese tech company owned by ByteDance, earlier this year restructured its US operations, with Oracle taking a majority stake in order to avoid a US ban on its platform. Industry analysts have noted that Finland has become a popular country for data centres as it has access to lower-cost renewable energy resources, along with a stable regulatory environment.
Some countries are pushing back against data centre development due to environmental and cost concerns, particularly as the energy-intensive industry can drive electricity prices higher. TikTok currently holds European user data within facilities in the US, Ireland, and Norway.
Its first Finnish data centre in Kouvola is expected to energy operation by year-end while the new Lahti site is expected to come online next year. Finland’s power generation mix is led by nuclear power, followed by wind power and hydropower. The country closed its last coal-fired power plant in 2025. Officials have worked to diversify the country’s energy portfolio, including adding hybrid power plants utilising wind, solar, and battery energy storage.
Several innovative energy projects are being tested in Finland, including a gridbalancing pilot optimised by artificial intelligence. Google last year announced a project designed to cool a data center in Hamina, in the south of Finland, that would expand into a district energy project for the community.
The offsite heat recovery project is being done with local utility Haminan Energia. Fortum this year has a project to modernise the turbines at the Loviisa nuclear plant; the government in 2023 extended the facility’s operating license to 2050. There are five operating nuclear reactors in Finland, two at Loviisa and three at Olkiluoto. Unit 3 at Olkiluoto is a 1,600- MW EPR (European Pressurised Reactor) that is among the most powerful reactors in the world.
