Social media group TikTok said it would invest €1 billion ($1.16 billion) to build the company’s second data center in Finland. TikTok on April 7 said the new facility would be in Lahti, in southern Finland, and would have capacity of 50 MW, scalable to 128 MW.
TikTok said its expansion in Finland is part of the company’s €12 billion ($14.02 billion) European data sovereignty initiative. The group said the continuing buildout is part of its strategy to strengthen data protection for its more than 200-million users in Europe. It also comes as the company experiences growing scrutiny over security and data privacy for its users. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, and earlier this year restructured its U.S. operations—with Oracle taking a majority stake—in order to avoid a U.S. ban on its platform.
Industry analysts have noted that Finland has become a popular country for data centers as it has access to lower-cost renewable energy resources, along with a stable regulatory environment. Some countries are pushing back against data center development due to environmental and cost concerns, particularly noting how the energy-intensive industry can drive electricity prices higher.
TikTok at present holds European user data within facilities in the U.S., Ireland, and Norway. Its first Finnish data center, in Kouvola, is expected to energy operation by year-end. The new Lahti site is expected to come online next year.
Nuclear Power Leads Generation Mix
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 utilizing wind, solar, and battery energy storage. Several innovative energy projects are being tested in Finland, including a grid-balancing pilot optimized 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 modernize 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 Pressurized Reactor) that is among the most powerful reactors in the world.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
