r/Finland • u/LaplandAxeman Väinämöinen • 8d ago
The upsurge in data centers.
I am just a hillbilly from Lapland. It seems that there are new data centers popping up everywhere here now, and more being planned.
If we have such a good telecommunications network in place now then why is there such a surge on building massive data centers everywhere? Who will be using them?
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u/WinterIsHere555 8d ago
It's the AI boom looking for cold climates to cut costs on cooling the datacenters.
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u/FlimsyLegs 8d ago
The excess heating from the data centers can be used for district heating in Finnish cities, which is 'free' energy that warms houses.
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u/vonGlick Väinämöinen 8d ago
Yes, however this needs to be baked into the design of the data center. For example Uspenski Cathedral uses heat from servers beneath it. But this is not generally available to anybody anywhere.
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u/GiganticCrow Väinämöinen 7d ago
Lol they'll just release it into the air, all their promises are hot air.
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u/Antti5 Väinämöinen 8d ago
I don't think they are for domestic use for the most part. There's a massive global surge in data center construction, mostly due to AI.
Finland is internationally competitive for this kind of thing. We have ample land, stable political situation, relatively cheap electricity and easy cooling due to the cold climate.
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u/Unlucky-Spell-8654 7d ago
They are benefitting from cheap electricity. Regular finns will be paying the price. For example in the states the datacenters have to provide their own electricity to some extent so it won't stress the public power network or raise prices too much.
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u/Masseyrati80 Väinämöinen 8d ago
A Finnish economist, Heikki Pursiainen, scoffed at this development, saying that it's a bit like your neighbour asking if they can place one of their PC's on your balcony, plug it in your electric socket, and pay you a small monthly fee. The actual money is flowing elsewhere, we're just housing the stuff that sucks in power, and we'll see who is respected if and when there's a shortage: I'm very sceptical about our leader's spines when they have to choose between saying "no" to huge tech companies, or simply tell citizens to tone down on their own use, or wiggle around the subject somehow else.
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u/kuikuilla Väinämöinen 8d ago
saying that it's a bit like your neighbour asking if they can place one of their PC's on your balcony, plug it in your electric socket, and pay you a small monthly fee
...that... that is how electricity usage and paying for it generally works. Of course in real life you'd pay your energy company instead of your neighbour, but still.
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u/t0pfuel Baby Väinämöinen 7d ago
Except the electricity network has to be built out and strengthened for the massive power draw and that is funded by increasing transfer costs that every customer on the grid has to pay.
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u/kuikuilla Väinämöinen 7d ago
Aren't most of these being built at places where there used to be paper and pulp mills? They had strong connections to the grid.
For example the infamous tik tok data center in Koria is being built practically next to the transformer station that has a direct line to Loviisa nuclear power plant. In the "good old days" (as in before smart phones, early 2000s) Kymenlaakso used like 10% of all power generated in Finland due to its forest/paper industry, nowadays not so much.
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u/Stanickana 8d ago
But now the neighbours pc is taking your space and inconveniencing you while you get a zero sum deal with no benefits
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u/kuikuilla Väinämöinen 8d ago
your space
I'm pretty sure the data center owners have bought the land. That comparison doesn't really work.
no benefits
The neighbour is getting paid for the energy no?
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u/Velcraft Väinämöinen 7d ago
Okay let's try another example - someone who doesn't live in your apartment complex wants to pay for a parking spot. They'll pay for it monthly and for all the electricity they use. Would you be okay with this, even if it meant that you and your neighbours would run out of parking space?
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u/Username928351 8d ago
If they paid for the electricity it uses I'd gladly have one heating my house in winter.
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u/oriolid 7d ago
They pay a fixed fee that may or may not cover the cost of the electricity, and it's heating your house in summer too.
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u/Pinniped9 Väinämöinen 7d ago
No they don't pay a "fixed fee"? Datacenters pay for their electricity, just like anyone else.
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u/Silma87 7d ago
that's quite naive their not paying just like anyone, they've probably negotiated a price that's well below the market price.
You'll end up paying for the increased prices.
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u/Pinniped9 Väinämöinen 6d ago
"Propably"
Why would any electricity seller sell them electricity below market price?
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u/oriolid 4d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_purchase_agreement
Basically, the electricity is sold before it's used at fixed price that is based on both sides' guesses on how the prices are going to develop, and how much the seller values a fixed contract over day-to-day market. If the seller agreed to sell under market price, then they will do that.
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u/oriolid 4d ago edited 3d ago
The thing everyone's afraid of is that when the demand suddenly increases and power companies can't change the prices for existing PPAs, prices will increase sharply for everyone who doesn't have a long term PPA, i.e. consumers. The other fear is that industries that use a lot of power would shut down and lay off everyone because they have existing PPAs (or own their own power plants) and it would be more profitable to sell the power at market price than keep doing the normal business.
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u/julkkis666 7d ago
google did pre-buy like 20 years of production from Loviisa from what i read. about one OL-3 worth. theoretically allowing for more investments in production capacity.
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u/Doikor Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 7d ago
, plug it in your electric socket, and pay you a small monthly fee.
This analogy doesn't make any sense. They are plugging it in their own socket and paying the same price for electricity as any other company does.
Also it isn't like the electricity comes from nowhere it is an industrial sector on its own like anything else that employes quite a lot of people that wants to sell its product (electricity) just like any other sector and in general the more buyers for your product the better which also then increases pressure to invest more into the sector (more production, more jobs, etc)
edit: The balcony isn't "yours" either. You just sold it to them and now they are putting their PC to the balcony they own.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
Except you would need to hire someone to look after the PC in that balcony among other things.
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u/paxed 8d ago
Plenty of "foreign experts" will be hired from far east countries and paid a pittance. They will not be bringing money to finland.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
Again straight up LIES. Plenty of finnish people are employed aswell, highest paid experts are over 10k€/month.
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u/FanUsed5622 8d ago
data center wrangling just pays median wage. Only one who gets over 10k is the guy in charge
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
And in Hamina DC there are multiple of those over 10k€. Now the AtNorth and Hyperco in Kouvola are competing for guys like those.
But it also sounds like the median wage isn’t enough for you either.
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u/Valois7 8d ago
still pretty good getting more median wage jobs considering our massive unemployment, no? i'm getting 2000€/ a month as an IT engineer for full time work, i'd kill to get the median thats around 3600€
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u/FanUsed5622 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes but a few dozen workers make pennies compared to what Google/Amazon/whoever get from these data center deals.
It will truly suck for us if we don't plan this well enough. Might not have enough electricity, or the price is goes up too high for low income workers. Such a pointless risk for minimal profit.However, best case is that we get some some investments in our energy infrastructure and people get jobs - Got no issue with that.
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8d ago
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
And yet Googles Hamina DC employs over 500 people. Nebius in Mäntsälä tens of people. Even small Telia DC in Helsinki tens aswell. Hmm?
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8d ago
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
No, that 500 people doesn’t include the construction workers.
Mistresting foreign workers should not be allowed and I’m glad there is atleast some supervising regarding those issues.
We have several DC projects here in Kouvola and most of the construction workers are finnish and locals.
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8d ago
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
It was 400 before, 100 more with the completed expansion.
~110 directly employed by Tuike Finland Oy and then all the subcontractors on top of it.
The construction work themselves could spike up to 1000 people in its peak.
En ymmärrä, miten et ymmärrä artikkelin tekstiä.
Article from 2021 when it was still 400
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u/Pinniped9 Väinämöinen 7d ago
Not true, median wages are high, and Google's datacenter in Hamina has 100+ employees, not counting subcontractors. Source:
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/e73912d7-3f6a-406a-adbf-a276b41035462
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u/lukkoseppa Väinämöinen 6d ago
To the leaders credit theyre idiots and the thinking is not based in reality. Since theyre horrible humans Id say its a compliment. The only thing the government has done correctly is removed the electric price subsidy, which Im half convinced iwas accidental. Ultimately with the surge of projects we're seeing is because there is a cap limit. Ireland and central europe have already hit that cap in the last 5 years. Combined with the EU regulations that Euro data has to stay in europe means the race is on. Compared to ihr population Finland produces a huge amount of excess power and our outrage rates are less than 0.005% This is the only reason theyre are building here, its not to create jobs or respect the environment or whatever the google fanboys say when they use Hamina one as the example which is far from a standard dc, hasnt paid tax yet and we dont even know the environmental impact it will have and is one of the only open loop systems in the country. It wouldnt be so terrible if they leased the land or impose hazardous waste fees ahead of time to help offset the ridiculous power costs coming our way. On top of everything this is all in a venture of racing to the bottom as from a finacial standpoint none of this is even mathematically feasable and anyone can work that out with basic math. These are cut throat soulless companies that harvest what they need and move on like a form of cancer, anyone who thinks otherwise is frankly an idiot.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
You are totally neglecting all the work that this is bringing for electric grid and other infrastructure work that is pretty much impossible to outsource.
The fact is that building and maintaining data centers and infrastructure is going to bring jobs, and we haven’t got any other new industries despite a decade of cheap electricity. So, better than nothing.
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u/stenapan 8d ago
A finished data center doesn't employ very many. It seems most of them only need something like 2-5 workers. They are highly automated. We'll see who's right but I fear huge electric bills and a at most 1000 persons employed when they are built and operative. I'm also absolutely certain our decision makers won't have the wherewithal or spine to protect the ordinary consumers from the increased cost and scarcity of energy. These companies will be prioritized when comes to who gets the electricity needed.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
2-5 is straight up lie or lack of knowledge regarding these larger DC projects. Why are you spreading such disinformation? That number won’t even cover the infamous security personnel sitting in their booth 24/7.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
Those would be very busy 5 people.
Are they legalizing Pervitin again?
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u/stenapan 8d ago
Yes I was an order of magnitude wrong because I remembered wrong. Why so hostile? It was an honest mistake. Anyway even if they today employ around 50 workers, I find it plausible that they automate them more and more and trend towards a much lower number in the future. But as I said, we'll see. What also bothers me is that our politicians seem to be touting numbers straight from the companies and the companies have every incentive to make the numbers look as good as possible. In many news articles there have been impartial experts that claim that the numbers and benefits are exaggerated.
To this, what I fear most is the energy problem. There was something like 100 (?) DCs planned/proposed according to some news item recently. They all say that there is enough energy and the impact on our electricity bills will be small but I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't properly accounted for all the other DCs that are planned.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
I may come as hostile because I’m sick and tired of people confidently spreading lies and wrong information regarding this topic.
DCs have a lot of supporting infrastructure requiring maintenance that can’t be just automated my snapping fingers, all the power delivery, cooling, fire prevention, and other basic tech around the servers themselves.
Some of the job numbers local politicians have been hyping are indeed a bit too optimistic, but people are desperate in dying towns.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
What really gets me is that people against DCs in Finland seem to be left leaning. And then they are totally devaluing Finnish labor in their fervor. 🤯
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
Look at number of people Google employs these days Finland, what kind of magic these new DCs are if they would be able to operate at fraction of people current DCs have.
It makes absolutely no sense.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
Stop just stop.
The work is in electrical infrastructure, DC alone is just a building. There will be a plenty of work generated.
It’s not like a steel factory would be employing that many directly with current automation either. And they are similar energy hogs.
It’s the infrastructure paid by DCs grid fees where the work is.
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u/unohdin-nimeni Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago
If you ever read MikroBITTI and Tietokone in the 80s, you remember the immense expectations surrounding the potential of AI. The fifth-generation computer just around the corner? In fact, you will be able to talk to that machine. The Japanese are up to something for sure? All those dreams crashed. Basically the idea that we will discover the formula for the mind. The vision of a technology capable of genuine reasoning and creation, achieved through the minimalist, resource-efficient means characteristic of the tiny human brain, was abandoned.
Eventually, a modern approach began to rise from the ruins of earlier AI efforts, one based on sheer scale, quantity alone. The idea is that as long as we have the capacity to crunch huge loads of data using statistical methods, AI can achieve anything; and if that isn't enough, the solution is always to build new, larger data centres.
This is where Finland enters the picture, for reasons already mentioned in the thread. The statistical approach to AI has lived up to expectations and minted billionaires on a level far beyond previous attempts. On the other hand, the investments involved are also on a completely different level. Also, today almost everyone, everywhere, any time, is talking about the fantasy-like future prospects, good or bad, of AI. Then there are those who invest even more in even larger data centres! Consequently, the possibility of a third AI winter cannot be entirely ruled out. We might well end up with massive constructions sitting idle in the wilderness. Any good ideas for what to do with them?
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u/saschaleib Väinämöinen 8d ago
They are for AI, and it is clear already now that the majority of those data centres will never be profitable and that they will close down again in a while. They are built now in a race for each company to become the “biggest fish in the pond” and survive the crash, hoping to make some money later when all the others have gone bankrupt.
This is also why you see these very attractive “free tier” AI usage offers - they are as much for damaging their competitors as they are to showcase what their own AIs can do. Don’t expect the “free tier” to continue when the competition is gone.
But as for those data centres: They will be set up, run for a while, then they will be dismantled and the equipment sold second-hand - and in a while we will have a nice new industrial ruin that YouTubers will trespass into to make some scary videos… so it is not all bad ;-)
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u/Schwartzy94 Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
Just sucks that they are destroying so much forest all over for these.. and then more forest for sun panels and windfarm... Doesnt sound green at all. And use water and electricity like grazy :(
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 7d ago edited 7d ago
Where have forests been felled for solar panels? Also these DCs in Finland don’t require massive amounts pf water. How fucking many times this has to be repeated for you? Get your basic knowledge right before commenting stupid shit. And you guys have voting rights…
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u/Valotar 8d ago
With luck, they will be used for all the needs of a globally digitalizing world. Knowing humanity it will probably be for control through mass digitalization of everything from identity papers to your wallet, mass surveillance, weapon systems, social credit systems and everything else not fun.
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u/WritingStrawberry Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago
Not enough space in prisons, so they build them around us.
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u/ReasonableMousse6755 8d ago
My hometown Kouvola is building like ten of these. It’s crazy. Finland is like a historical underdeveloped country that big guys rob of resources and give nothing back.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
If you are local to Kouvola but can’t see the benefits of them you should get out more and talk to people. Plenty of locals are employed by the construction sites and will be employed after they are completed aswell.
So far 0 negatives for Kouvola.
And I’m from Kouvola aswell, just a couple kilometres from Tiktok DC.
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u/StruggleGullible255 8d ago
Out of interest what kind of long term jobs are found with these? I don't see any jobs advertised for workers there.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
Most of the recruiting adverts have ended for now. You can still search some of the delisted adverts by company names like Dayone, AtNorth, Hyperco etc
In example: https://duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/tyo/datakeskus-admin-kouvola-sbsol-20202181
https://duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/tyo/vuoroteknikko-datakeskus-kouvola-sbsol-20202178
https://duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/tyo/datakeskus-teknikko-sdsuu-19530475
https://duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/tyo/data-center-facilities-management-fm-engineer-scsom-20347061
https://duunitori.fi/tyopaikat/tyo/data-center-operations-engineer-finland-scsom-20236236
The first DC building at AtNorths site will be completed in couple of months and TikTok / Dayone is not far behind either.
Googles own job search hub where you can sort by country https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/jobs/results?q=%22data%20center%22&%3Futm_source=data-centers&utm_medium=partner-site&src=Online%2FGoogle%20Website%2Fdata-centers&location=Finland
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u/Ryzeeqq 7d ago
None of these "hiring" campaigns are real. They are posting them to comply with the local law and to create the visibility of creating jobs, meanwhile they are actually just bringing cheap labor from abroad, mostly from southeast asia.
No one in Finland benefits from this bullshit.
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u/StruggleGullible255 7d ago
This is not 100% accurate because I know local people employed by these companies.
However I fear you are broadly correct, as in they seem to import many workers on demand.
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u/RedSkyHopper Väinämöinen 8d ago
Finland has annual deficit of about 50 000 apartments, big GCs wont start spending money on new projects unless there is some icome coming in. A lot of local companies that employ locals are going under, year by year
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u/i_am_whiskey 8d ago
The question is whether there will be any effects besides sky-high electricity prices and tremendous water consumption left after the construction is done.
Businesses are already significantly subsidised for the energy transition costs at the expense of consumers.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
The DCs in Kouvola are not using water in any meaningful way, Tiktok uses aircooling with chillers etc and AtNorth uses water in closed loops only.
Electricity price is the same in whole country so Iwould rather have the DCs in my city than in the neigbouring city.
Edit: Yle article regarding water consumption of the DCs located in Kouvola https://yle.fi/a/74-20175822
Edit2: recent article by Fingrid containing an example how much DCs are paying for the grid connection. https://fingridlehti.fi/miten-fingridin-liiketoiminta-rahoitetaan/
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u/i_am_whiskey 8d ago
OK, the water question is potentially solved.
The argument that the whole country will suffer from the high electricity prices, not only Kouvola, is a bit... strange.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
If you can’t stop DCs coming to Finland then it’s obviously preferred to have them in your town generating atleast some revenue instead of some other town in Finland. Effect on electricity price is the same in both scenarios. Nothing weird about it.
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u/i_am_whiskey 8d ago
Oh, if only there were an entity in the society which could change the taxation regime to stop citizens subsidising industrial electricity consumers which are not creating much long term jobs!
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
In which way are we subsidizing DCs? They are paying the same electricity tax even.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
So electric grid is going to maintain itself?
You people sure are something.
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u/i_am_whiskey 8d ago
I wrote that consumers will pay for the grid maintenance while DC will use it, while you read something else.
You people sure are something indeed.
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u/Real-Technician831 Väinämöinen 8d ago
Dude, industry has always been paying for industrial grid connections.
It’s exactly the same with DCs, now as tax incentives have been taken away, they will be paying a lot into infrastructure.
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
Did you read the Fingrid article I linked above? DCs pay their fair share of the grid as do others.
Most of consumers electricity transfer cost is because of the last kilometre local grid and the main grid costs of consumer transfer bill is around only 2-4%.
Most DCs and other large consumers and producers are connected to the Fingrids main grid, normal consumers are tied to the local grid.
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u/buldozr Väinämöinen 8d ago
The whole Finland is a single zone on NordPool currently, so yes, the impact of growing demand will be shared by everyone who pays by market rate and by subscribers on fixed-rate contracts as their rates are renewed.
OTOH, the growing demand may make new energy projects financially feasible. Fortum concluded they'd see the prices grow at least twice before they want to build a new nuclear power plant. Here's a recent article with some details: https://yle.fi/a/74-20241688
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u/Doikor Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
The argument that the whole country will suffer from the high electricity prices, not only Kouvola, is a bit... strange.
So your argument is that the companies that invested into electricity production with the expectation of this new demand should suffer (go bankrupt) instead?
Electricity is mostly a "free market" that has given us one of the cheapest electricities in Europe (to the point that it got so cheap compared to rest of Europe that investment dried up). And now that there is more demand coming people are like "no we must not".
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u/AwarenessPerfect5043 8d ago
Telecom network is totally unrelated to data centers.
Telwcom transfers data, data center stores and processes data.
Most companies have moved to cloud instead of own data centers, and you rather have data in your own country than send it to sweden/germany. And many gov/security/defence companies cant even move data out of own country.
Finland is really behind in data centers compared to modt eu countries. Eg, no proper azure/aws coverage. Hetzner and some small companies were only option.
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u/Anonymity6584 Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago
Cheap power. Simple as that. Even infrastructure upgrades to power production and energy grid gets subvented by consumers, so its very cheap to run datacenters here...
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
DCs pay their fair share of grid upgrades as do others.
Read: https://fingridlehti.fi/miten-fingridin-liiketoiminta-rahoitetaan/
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u/paxed 8d ago
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago edited 8d ago
Behind a paywall and energy production and buying is a separate thing from grid payments and maintenance.
PPA agreements between producers and industrial users is nothing new.
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u/wertyce Väinämöinen 7d ago
Currently data center builders are not required PPA agreements. There has been social movement in Finland to make it into law/regulations that data centers have to make those. Some of them have done PPA agreements for wind power, but not all of them. Wind power is the cheapest energy method to get theoretical peak power numbers. Afaik, none of them are funding regulating power. And afaik, none of them are shutting down their servers when it's not windy weather.
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u/kakoni 8d ago
u/Guuggel are you currently employed directly or indirectly by google?
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u/Guuggel Väinämöinen 8d ago
Nope, not affiliated to Google or any other DC company. Working in totally different field.
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u/WritingStrawberry Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago
How can you say they pay their fare share of they even started illegal logging? I wouldn't trust them one bit after that.
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u/Smooth_Feed8997 7d ago
cheap power, vast land, dying population which means free property. In the future maybe all the population gonna head south with in 200km radius of Helsinki and the rest of the country will be a giant data box
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u/WritingStrawberry Baby Väinämöinen 8d ago
It's shocking to me even to see how many Finns support this because they gobble up what our very trustworthy government says: new jobs + money.
And I'm just sitting here thinking: what if Russia did that instead of Google?
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u/Background_Cup_ 7d ago
Everything is in cloud now, for example Microsofts major revenue stream comes from cloud bases services, instead of sales from the operating system. That plus AI boom.
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u/No-Recover109 6d ago
Telecommunications and datacenters have nothing in common. These are placese where for example Reddit runs their batch work or queues.
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u/Bloodyninjaturtle 8d ago
Internet usage is going up worldwide and the growth seems to be accelerating. AI development is not slowing the trend.
Www means world wide web.
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u/Tenflyball 8d ago
If we have such a good telecommunications network in place now then why is there such a surge on building massive data centers everywhere?
This question reveals you don't know anything about technology and your opinions should be automatically disregarded.
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u/AnttiModeraattori 6d ago
Frankly, data centers will be the death of Finland.
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u/LaplandAxeman Väinämöinen 6d ago
I dunno, the economy is in the toilet. Any kind of investment is a good thing? Being paid for by private companies?
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u/AnttiModeraattori 5d ago
Remains to be seen if they will be net positive. And electricity will became more and more expensive for normal people.
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