Sesterce plans €10bn Finland AI data centre

French startup Sesterce said it would invest more than 10 billion euros in a major artificial intelligence and data centre hub in Finland.

The project is planned for Jamsa on the site of a former paper mill. Sesterce said the site would develop supercomputing and computing infrastructure for AI, and told AFP that work had already begun.

The company said the “AI campus” was due to come online in 2027. It said the first stage would have 200 megawatts of computing capacity, expected to rise to 600 megawatts in a second phase, but did not say when that expansion would happen.

Sesterce also said it had secured an anchor customer, but declined to identify it. The company said it hopes to develop more than one gigawatt of computing capacity in Finland, depending on market demand.

Finland has attracted major data centre investment because of its cool climate and relatively cheap, stable power supplies, much of them generated without fossil fuels. Google last month announced a 13-billion-euro investment in digital infrastructure across Finland over two years to power its AI models.

The data centre boom has also faced scrutiny. A Finnish authority on Tuesday ordered work to stop at two data centre sites after finding that required environmental impact assessments had not been completed.