On September 9, 2026, Google announced its largest single investment in Europe. The company commits at least €13 billion to Finnish data centers and energy infrastructure in 2027 and 2028, expanding the existing Hamina campus and adding three new sites in Kajaani, Muhos, and Vaala. For the construction sector, this is great news: thousands of hectares, dozens of buildings, and a construction program that will extend well beyond the two-year investment window.
Four sites, one regional cluster
Google is not a newcomer in Finland. Back in 2009, it converted a former paper mill in Hamina into a seawater-cooled data center. It has invested around €4.5 billion there over 15 years, and the site’s waste heat already feeds Hamina’s district heating network. The new program shifts the center of gravity north, to the border of North Ostrobothnia and Kainuu.
Google bought 1,400 hectares in Kajaani and Muhos in 2024 and another 900 hectares in Vaala in February 2026. In Muhos, more than 600 hectares are zoned for data center and industrial use, with close to two million square meters of building rights. Current plans show nine server halls in Muhos and eight in Kajaani’s Otanmäki, plus offices, support buildings and even hotels. Vaala’s roughly 300-hectare plan is expected to be ready next spring.
The three sites lie close to each other, and billion-euro projects are already under way in Kajaani and Utajärvi. XTX Markets, for example, is building its own campus in Kajaani. The result is a data center zone that Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, describes as exceptional even on a European scale.
Why the Nordics, and why Finland now
The Nordics provide a perfect location for data centers: a cool climate, abundant clean power, stable societies and reliable grids. Sweden has long dominated, accounting for roughly 45% of Nordic data center construction power capacity in 2025, compared with about 22% for Norway and 13% for Finland. Google itself broke ground in Horndal, Sweden, in June.
What drives companies to the Nordics now is the scarcity of large grid connections elsewhere in Europe. Finland can offer power at scale on relatively short timelines, supported by nuclear capacity, wind, and a strong transmission operator. Google says it worked with Fingrid and Business Finland to site the new facilities near existing grid infrastructure and carbon-free generation. Its own study estimates that locating 1 GW of new demand in the Oulu–Kajaani region rather than in southern Finland could save Finnish consumers €520 million over 20 years.
The energy side of the deal is as significant. Google signed a 22-year power purchase agreement with Fortum for up to half of the Loviisa nuclear plant’s output, its first nuclear agreement outside the United States. A 94 MW battery system near Kajaani is scheduled to start operating in late 2027.
What it means for construction
The scale of the construction task is unprecedented for the region. Google estimates the program will support more than 37,000 jobs, around 16,000 of them in construction, and about 7,000 jobs, directly and indirectly, once the sites are operating. According to Iltalehti, Aleksi Randell, CEO of the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries RT, considers the 16,000 figure realistic. He puts the scale in perspective: new building construction in Finland totals just under €4 billion this year. The Ministry of Finance estimates that €2.6 to 3.9 billion of Google’s €13 billion will remain in Finland, mainly through construction and building services, while most of the value goes to imported servers and equipment.
A common assumption is that foreign crews will take most of the construction jobs. Randell points to a different pattern. At the roughly €1 billion data center site in Koria, Kouvola, around 1,000 people were working, and 85% of them were Finnish. Finnish contractors have built up data center expertise over years, and operators already in the country tend to prefer domestic partners. Randell cautions that persistent shortages in some trades may increase the need for foreign labor, and that the foreign share varies widely between projects.
Either way, the bottlenecks are predictable. Skilled MEP labor, electrical and cooling equipment, temporary housing and logistics will be scarce in a sparsely populated area where local accommodation is minimal. Repeatable server halls favor industrialized delivery, prefabrication and standardized design, which suits Nordic contractors with that experience. Municipalities are already planning for waste-heat users, which adds district energy and industrial integration work to the scope.
Permits and appeals set the pace
Finnish municipalities are often very supportive and zone quickly for large industrial projects, but appeals to the administrative court can slow the process. The zoning plans in Muhos and Kajaani were approved in spring 2026, yet both have been appealed.
Contractors and designers must prepare now but plan for schedule risk. Earthworks and enabling works are moving, while building permits and main contracts depend on court decisions.
Construction braces for a new standard
In the US, criticism of data center construction has grown, and Loudoun County in Virginia voted this month to pause new data center applications. In Finland, the debate centers on electricity prices and how much of the value stays in the country.
The Finnish construction sector, however, views data centers as a welcome financial development, while recognizing the need to align its processes with the standards global hyperscale clients demand. Sari Paukku, Development Manager at the Finnish construction company Fira, described the change at the Building 2030 seminar in August.
“We all know we’ll be building data centers in the coming years. They will overturn all our initial assumptions,” she said. “The bureaucratic requirements are on a completely different level from what we’re used to, including design approvals and other requirements. So at this moment, I should not be speaking here but revising our management system.”