Google commits €13bn to Finnish AI data centres and 22-year nuclear power deal

Google has announced a €13bn (£11bn; $15bn) investment in Finnish AI infrastructure, its largest single investment in Europe to date. According to the BBC, the package funds three new data centres, expands an existing site, and is paired with a 22-year agreement under which the company will buy up to half the electricity produced by the Loviisa nuclear power plant.

The nuclear contract

The power agreement is with Fortum, the Finnish utility that operates Loviisa, a plant the BBC reports currently generates around 10% of Finland's electricity. The 22-year term gives the plant long-term financial certainty, and Fortum says Google's commitment will support a programme to extend the station's operating life and increase its generating capacity.

For Google, the appeal is straightforward: a large, steady supply of low-carbon power for facilities that run continuously. Buying such a substantial share of a single reactor's output also shifts part of the risk of AI-driven demand growth onto a contracted, dispatchable source rather than spot markets.

What the €13bn pays for

The investment covers new data centres in Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala, plus an expansion of Google's existing Hamina facility, which was created by converting a former paper mill in 2009. Construction is scheduled for 2027 and 2028. Google says the infrastructure will support products including its Gemini chatbot as well as Search, Maps and YouTube.

Beyond buildings and servers, the company says the money also covers clean energy projects, grid enhancements, energy affordability initiatives, and dedicated nature and community funds for local biodiversity, education, research and workforce development.

According to Google's own estimates, reported by the BBC, the build-out is expected to support more than 37,000 jobs during construction and add around €3.6bn to Finland's GDP each year.

Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, said the investment pairs infrastructure expansion with new energy capacity. Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called the decision "a clear testament to our strengths" and said deepening collaboration with Google would deliver lasting benefits for both parties.

Why Finland

The BBC notes that Finland has become a magnet for data centre construction for practical reasons: a cool climate that reduces the energy needed to chill server halls, plentiful low-carbon electricity, and a relatively uncongested power grid. The country's appeal is not hypothetical. Earlier in the same week, TikTok announced a $1bn investment to build a data centre in Kouvola, citing Finland's digital infrastructure, clean energy mix, data governance and skilled workforce.

Part of a wider spending surge

The Finnish commitment sits inside a much larger capital programme. Earlier this year, according to the BBC, Google's parent company Alphabet raised its global spending plans to as much as $205bn as it races to expand computing capacity for AI services. Competitors are doing the same, and access to electricity — not land, hardware or capital — is increasingly the binding constraint on data centre growth. That is what makes long-dated contracts with existing nuclear plants attractive: they lock in carbon-free capacity years ahead of demand.

Why it matters

This deal is a template for how hyperscalers now plan AI infrastructure: compute investment and energy procurement negotiated as one package. A 22-year offtake agreement for half a nuclear plant's output is a bet that AI demand is durable, not a cyclical spike, and it effectively underwrites the plant's life extension with corporate money rather than public subsidy.

For Finland, the deal positions the country as a serious player in the European AI build-out, with jobs and GDP gains attached. For the wider industry, it signals that the scarce resource in the AI race is firm, clean electricity — and that companies able to secure it decades in advance will hold a structural advantage over those that cannot.