Why the Nordics Are Becoming Europe’s Next Data Center Hub | Live at Datacloud Global Congress 2026

In the second episode of our series recorded live at Datacloud Global Congress 2026 in Cannes, Andy Davis is once again joined by co-host Rory Flashman from Spa Communications to explore why the Nordics have become one of the most talked-about regions in the European data centre market.

Joining the conversation:

Tor Kristian Gyland, Heim Data Center

Svein Atle Hagaseth, Heim Data Center

Fresh from launching their new venture, Heim Data Center, Tor and Svein discuss why Sweden, Finland and the wider Nordic region are attracting growing interest from data centre operators, investors and customers.

The conversation explores how power availability, renewable energy, cooling efficiency, regulatory stability and strong fibre connectivity are helping position the Nordics as a major destination for future data centre growth. The discussion also looks at why the region is no longer just seen as a location for AI training, but increasingly as a viable hub for cloud, inference and wider digital infrastructure workloads.

Tor and Svein also discuss the differences between Nordic markets, including Finland’s predictability, Sweden’s emerging regional opportunities and Norway’s more complex power and community narrative. They explain why local engagement, early dialogue with municipalities and long-term contribution to communities will be critical as the industry scales.

Recorded live at Datacloud Global Congress 2026 in Cannes.

Tune in for a timely conversation on why the Nordics are moving from the edge of Europe’s data centre map to the centre of its next growth story, and how power, sustainability, connectivity and community engagement will shape the region’s future.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

The data centre industry is moving faster than ever, and behind the scenes some seriously smart people are making it all happen. Welcome to the Inside Data Centre Podcast, where we dive into the stories, insights and innovations driving real change across the industry. From hyperscale campuses to game-changing technologies, we're talking to the people shaping the future of digital infrastructure. Whether you live and breathe data centres or just want to understand what's powering our connected world, you're in the right place. Welcome to Inside Data Centre Podcast. Day two in Cannes. We're back again on the Global Commissioning Network in Terrace. Well said. I remembered what it was called. Um everyone I've been speaking to has been talking about Nordics. So I've only been here 36 hours, roughly, and everyone's talking about Nordics. So we've got two excellent guests who are going to tell us all about it. I'd normally do an introduction, but as you've recently launched, I think you should both introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what you're up to at the moment. Sure, we're more than happy to do that.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

So uh after uh about a decade or more in Green Mountain, we decided to do something new. So we're starting a new venture called Heim Data Center, uh, based on a lot of the things that we hopefully did both well and not so well in uh in Green Mountain, and then trying to do it better. So we're kind of building a platform out of the Sweden and Finland, um, and uh kind of uh like the rest of uh of your uh guests uh starting in the Nordics, uh and there's multiple reasons that of course we do have local expertise from that market after having operated in in the market for 10-15 years. Um so yeah, that's uh basically why we're starting Heim is kind of to build on that momentum in that that market, and then doing that hopefully with uh knowledge and confidence.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, and I think, and as I said, we were saying like everyone's been talking about the Nordics. Like if you're in Europe, Nordics is a region where everybody wants to kind of learn a little bit more about it or they're looking to develop. So hopefully we can answer some of those some of those questions on the pod as well. But both of you, Toran Sven, you've both been in the industry and the region for quite a while. So I'd like to get your understanding a bit on the region, like the how it's evolved and how we've kind of arrived at this point where it seems to be suddenly like an insane amount of demand.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Yeah, it's it's an interesting interesting question, and I think it's all about the power availability because we're when when things are growing in our industry, the need of of larger deployment with with quite a huge amount of power is essential to to to uh to be able to deploy anything. And and if you look at the the the uniqueness of the nordic regions with uh with uh over time, quite a huge power production. If you we're not doing things in Norway, doing Sweden and Finland, but but to use Norway as an example because we're we're from there, uh if you compare the power production in Norway to uh to Germany, Germany is like the 10 times the amount of even more the amount of people, but they only produce the double amount of power in Germany as we do in Norway. So there is a tremendous amount of of power, it's all green, renewable, uh with with the hydro, and also not with a lot of wind, wind adding on. So it's an ideal location, and then adding all uh adding on also the climate, where you you get the the energy efficient efficiency out of using the cold climate for for cooling. So it's an ideal fit for a huge growth.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

I think also there's a couple of other components to that as well. So portion, uh of course, power is a is a massive part of it, and the sustainability aspect kind of it's a it's a it's a very good add-on. Uh but uh but of course I think one of the things as well is that the Nordics is a very well-regulated type of market, it's stable. Uh and one of the things that kind of amazed us when we kind of went into Finland now was how predictable the journey from actually starting to getting power to getting building permit is in Finland, also compared to some of the other Nordic countries. So it's uh so it's a it's a great region and it's a great uh place to to start uh in regards to having predictability of timelines in a market that is currently struggling with delivering on time. In the Nordics, there it's it's a very, very different kind of uh opportunity. And uh, like I said, all the Nordic countries uh are net exporters of power today, so a lot of power available. Just need to make sure that you know how to get it, and hopefully we do.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

And and there is another element as well. For during the years we we we worked in Green Mountain, uh, we spent a lot of time telling the international clients that we're closer than you think. Uh the distance going to the Norway and to the Nordics is by many uh anticipated as something short. But uh, but uh with the deployment we've had over the years with with customers running mission-critical applications out of Norway for users sitting in in Germany, it works perfect. The fiber development over the years has been been massive and and Nordics are no part of uh Europe. You can put your data center in the Nordics and and get all the benefits of of uh uh efficiency and and and sustainability and run your application from from reducer from Germany.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

And have the customers changed? No, obviously we've been talking for years then, but have have we seen that is that part of the demand as well? It's the new breed of customer, yeah, AI, neo cloud, whatever you whatever you want to call it today, but is it is that also on top of everything else, is also making the Nordics more attractive?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Absolutely. I think the Nordics have been uh for a period of time been really good at kind of doing AI training type of uh developments. Uh of course, when we are selecting our facilities, we think a little bit differently about it, right? So we want to be close to Europe. So we're for instance, we're not doing anything up in the northern parts of these countries, and the reason for that is that we don't just want to be an AI factory, AI training type of facility. We have we come from a background where we have had significant hyperscale type of exposure and kind of taking that thinking of how do we actually build new, how do we build multifunctional facilities from the campuses, then you need to be a little bit more disciplined in regards to how you actually select locations. So, the for instance, the two locations that we do now have in Finland, they're like 35 to 45 minutes away from from Helsinki, easy to get people, but also close enough so that you can actually deliver both AI training, but also AI inference and cloud workloads from potentially the same campuses.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

It's interesting. Like uh, I think there's a there's a stat fighting around that the Nordics are going to outpace flat, they already are, and that's been kind of the top of conversation for some time. Everyone assumes the Nordics is just one region, it's one place, right? But surely there are nuances, uh different kinds of things happening in each individual country. Like, do you see these kind of new clusters emerging in specific new hubs in those locations?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Absolutely, we uh we do, right? So I think I think one of the things that when I went on garden leave in in uh after my Green Mountain uh venture, it was like you finally got the the time to actually think forward what is happening. See what's happened, what what's happening in because when you're kind of building Green Mountain and like it uh you you always keep running, right? So now you actually got the time to sit down. What does the market need? Where is the market going to a much different type of structure than than when you actually are running at the same time? So I think one of the things that we did see was kind of the local differences. We knew Norway extremely well, but uh we wanted to see how was it also in Sweden and Finland, especially and also Denmark, uh, in regards to where do we put our first data centers. And we then decided, like many others, to go to Finland basically because of the predictability of actually getting to a final result. So we the regulation is very different. There's uh power shortages, or it's not shortages, but there's a you need to know how to get power, you need to know how to get zoning in all of these different countries, but the regulation is very different on how you do things in Finland versus how you do things in Norway in regards to how you secure power as an example, right? So so absolutely different regulation, also very different in regards to how the narrative of data centers are perceived across the uh across the Nordics. In Norway, unfortunately, we do see a little bit more of kind of the NIMBY aspect uh appearing, more on because Norway has always had a very, very low power price, and of course, consumption changes uh power pricing slightly. Yep. Uh but uh but uh in so Norway some more fuss around that. Finland, it's almost like when we are getting to the airport, people are kind of waving the Finnish flag, please come. And so it's a little bit it the feeling is very different, and also what we have realized, for instance, in Finland is that they have really understood that energy is kind of the source to build new industries. Uh so whenever we're driving, and we've been driving a lot in in Finland uh uh since we started the company in mid-February, and and it's like there's new power lines, there's new substations everywhere. Uh, and in and not to complain again, but in Norway it's a little bit harder to make sure that you actually enhance the grid capability. Uh uh, so there's absolutely big differences between the different countries in regards to our regulation, how we get power, how you actually get to a final result, and also in regards to where you actually select to build, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Um yeah from a community perspective, it's quite interesting because it will come out, it always comes out in every podcast at the moment, because everybody's talking about whether you where you're building doesn't matter, there's that challenge around community. Do you think Finland's just done a very good job at kind of explaining the benefit of the industry? Is that why it's more it's received more positive than other really?

SPEAKER_03 10:11

I think what Finland has understood is that in order to create growth in the in the in a country, in a society, energy is the key element. Yeah. And uh and uh in those locations where we we have visited in Finland, there has been some uh factories that have been shut down, changes in in workforce, and and the local communities are really eager on getting new businesses. And when and there's also been over the years discussion on on the number of workspaces in a data center, but but the the those years in Green Mountain and especially the project in Hamar has been really uh gone through in details, showing that we're actually above the traditional industry on the number of people working in a data center. So so so and that it that is being perceived in in Finland, they understand it, and and we're being welcomed into the to the uh to the communities. But you see, see the the same in in Sweden, it's a little bit going to Stockholm, it's a little bit challenging today. But uh outside other regions of Sweden, you see, see paper mills being shut down, they have power, you see other regions that hasn't had the growth that that uh that central Stockholm has had. They're really eager on regulating and getting data center business into the uh and we we're not dependent on governmental funding or governmental loans, we're we're self-sufficient on on everything. We bring capital to the side, we need to employ local people and build uh an industry.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

But I think also is that I think we as an industry are have done ourselves a disfavor as well, right? It's been it's always or at least historically it's been on our terms. Yeah, I think we absolutely need to change the narrative, right? We need to engage with local municipalities early. We need to talk about kind of a circular aspect. We're when we are investing, we're investing for 25, 30 years down the road, right? So we need to be kind of a long-term citizen in the local municipality. So we need to start with we need to start with what we're going to contribute into that local society and how we can kind of enable other time. Things like, for instance, district heating now in in Finland, right? So so you need to kind of have a very different perspective on how you actually approach the market so that you become a welcome uh uh tenant in the local society instead of starting off answering questions about power or water usage or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

You're an old hockey player, so so you want to build hockey arenas in those days.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

So sponsor the local hockey team. Yeah, okay. Well, when you talk about communities well, that's a really good point that you bring. We've we talked about it yesterday as well. Like we do have you have to listen to what that community is looking for because all communities want something different or need something different about. There's a different requirement. Like we were the example yesterday was an ambulance, wasn't it? Like, yeah, not everyone just wants an ambulance. Like they they might want a new hockey field, they might want new leisure facilities. Like you have to listen in order to know.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

I I think uh I think I I tend to use uh an example of the you know you've seen the the kind of the stadium uh thing in Paris, the digital realty, right? The story that I've heard, and uh kind of got it confirmed that it's uh partially correct. So I'll I'll tell it my way, digital realty will probably tell it differently. But when they were building that arena, I was told that they went to the mayor, the mayor said, I don't really care what it is, but there's three things that you need to kind of do to be able to get the uh the opportunity to build. One, it it can't be ugly, it needs to look pretty, it needs to be kind of something that we would like to uh to look at. Second is uh you need to kind of build a park around it, need to be something that kind of draws people in. Thirdly, you need to build a recruitment center because we have a problem in unemployment, so you need to take people right off the street and and kind of engage to be in the data center. If you fulfill all of those three requirements, you're good to go. And I think that's kind of the the discussions that we need to have. It's not on our terms, it has to be on the local community's terms.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

So it's a good point. It's interesting also that you say that energy is the key to unlock economic growth. I think like speaking from where I sit in the UK, uh, the UK's kind of hedging its bets on kind of AI ambitions in general. It's kind of in a difficult position. What what do you it the government's kind of making all the right noises, but let's say there's there's not enough action around, especially around kind of energy pricing and energy availability. What do you think the governments in the Nordics are doing differently to enable and attract that growth, you know, especially in terms of like you know, Femin waving the welcoming flag?

SPEAKER_03 14:55

But but I it it it's it's if if you look a little bit to the future and uh uh something that has been quite welcomed in Finland, and that is to look at how we could start to produce our the energy ourselves. Yep, because we we build data centers, those are our our factories uh consuming energy, and we have Genset, which is uh which is your energy production facility, and we have the knowledge, the capability, and also the funding to actually build the factory producing energy, either if it's uh gas or nuclear or or other things. In Finland, that is uh accepted and it's supported. So I think you'll you'll see more moving towards that instead of of of using that's the grid that's there today and affecting the prices for local people. So you you you'll sustain yourself. If you go to other other parts of the Nordic, it's a little bit more difficult today because of regulations. But I think you'll see changes there as well. So so we we will build something that are not affecting anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Yeah, and and uh and uh um at least it will affect positively instead of doing it negatively, right? And that's that's back to the to the narrative uh aspect again, is right? You need to you need to engage early, you need to think more holistically in regards to being a local citizen than just uh consumer.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

It sounds like there's a a community recommendation there for uh for certainly for operators in the UK, right? Especially with regards to things like wait, waste heat, district heating, infrastructure we don't typically have in the UK. It sounds like you're saying without saying it, think about these things in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

And and and and when you're talking about district heating, that's another element. And and being in the Nordics, which which are not that heavily populated, I would say Stockholm, Helsinki, and some part of Finland, also some part of Sweden, are we have district heating deployed quite well out. Uh Norway is a little bit different. So we have over the years looked at alternatives. What could we do to Georgia, reuse the the uh the excess heat of a data center? And and I would say the data center industry has been the running that business because the the traditional industry they're also using energy but have no means of of reusing the waste heat. So we we've looked at uh at a lot of different different initiatives from greenhouses to fish farming and uh and uh biogas plants, and uh one successful project is actually the the one in Rukan where you have uh uh onshore uh throat uh production. So so quite a lot of uh of uh fish are being produced every year with heat uh delivered from the data center.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Yeah, you see you heat use the heat from the data center to warm up the pools where the fish is.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah, excellent, which is another good example of actually giving back, but in a very different way.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's in a different way, and another way that that when you don't have district heating, let's let's find something else that could be using it.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Yeah, but I think back in regards to the scarcity of population in the Nordics as well, it's that's why it's also so important to engage with the municipalities early so that you're not you're not building in the middle of nowhere, yeah, but you're actually planning that with the municipality so that when they are going to do new uh what do you call uh areas to or residential type of uh of developments. And and in these areas as well, we bring a lot of kind of workplaces, so people need a place to live. So we need to kind of have the municipality also plan with future developments that can actually do heat reuse from the data center, right? So so I think this is this is again back to kind of the the take a more holistic approach, work early with the municipalities in regards to how you actually get things done.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

When you look to the future, like I get this is we're asking people like the future of the industry, but I think for you it's quite important, future of high as well. Like, you know, what in a in a very you know, couple of minutes, what what do you think the future looks like for the region? Is it kind of more of the same? Is it just kind of more and and also for yourself, yeah. What does the next you probably don't know the next week looks like at the moment, but what does the next couple of years look like?

SPEAKER_02 19:00

I think like because I think the Nordics is gonna be kind of the next big hub in in Europe. Um, and there's like reasons for that. I think it's a lot of convergence of different forces driving capacity to Nordics. And this is not just power, but it of course power is the enabler of a lot of things that is happening. But just like Drakrishna said as well, it's it's closer than you think, right? And in regards to how you actually can deploy that, is there's so much of the capacity that doesn't need to reside in Frankfurt or need to reside in the in London, right? So it's the ability to kind of build, keep the workloads that actually need to be there, that are dramatically uh latency sensitive, and then move move to other places where you can get better sustainability, better uh power supply, better energy efficiency, etc. So I think it's we need to think a little bit differently in regards to how we actually deploy workloads. And of course, we are now building facilities that kind of enable these multi-functional type of workloads from our data centers. So that's that's our future look is we're gonna do more than just do AI training in uh in the Nordics. We're going to do much larger type of workloads.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

If you look a little bit to the future, I think one of the things I'm I'm uh uh I'm I'm really looking forward to see how it goes is is the is the challenge we have today with the lack of talents uh where the industry is growing and to get hold of good people to be able to manage that growth, uh that is today a challenge and will be uh moving on. And and uh uh after I left Green Mountain three years ago, I've been working as an advisor, and there are a lot of opportunities with startups that uh they have a good idea, they have a site, they have uh capital, but getting the people that are that you need in order to deploy it in the in the way I said I've always said it, that there is there's no problem of building it's quite easy to build a data center if you could use three years and 20 million euros per megawatt. The difficult thing is to build it on 12 months with 11 million or 10 10 to 11 million euros per megawatt. That that's the really challenging thing, and that's what you have to do in order to succeed in this business. That's what we're doing in Haim. When we when when Svenatla called me and and said that uh I'm uh I'm planning to leave Green Mountain, we we started to chat and said our knowledge together, uh together with the network we have to be able to attract those talent talents. I I think we will we will take a huge position in the Nordics moving forward. Uh we're uh we haven't established a company, but we are already 10 people that uh has committed. So so we're there building a company with with the right people, with the knowledge skill set, secured the funding last week, some uh signed the term sheet last week. So we have the investor with us. So it's uh going to be some interesting years moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Exciting times, yeah. Congratulations on that as well. It sounds awesome. I want to speak on your behalf, but I'm we'd love to come and see it. Where we are when you're in a position to actually host guests, we'd definitely love to come and see it. More than happy to be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

And final question before we let you go and go and enjoy Cam. That's why that's why we're here. Um, just about the event, really. What who I I've been close for my fifth time, if we've you know been coming for a number of years. What's been your key highlight so far? And what are you looking for forward to over the next we don't we don't know what day it is. We had this conversation before so let's say over the next two days, but who knows what day it is?

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, yeah, no, uh I of course the there's a this bit. This uh this event is it's it's fantastic. It's it kind of gathers the whole industry. And for us now, which are kind of in startup mode, the type of you get to meet everybody, right? So we're we're meeting uh uh follow-on investors, we're meeting the supply chain, we're meeting uh brokers, we're meeting clients, right? So so that so that ability to kind of meet everybody in one location, that's kind of the highlight to me. So like I said, yesterday we had I think we had 16 meetings yesterday. We we left at 7.15 in the morning for the first meeting, and we're home after the last client meeting at 11 p.m., right? So so it's just a very, very hectic days. So we can joke about being income, but it's it's like real work. It's hard work. It's hard.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

It's not it's quite interesting. I I joined my first uh Data Cloud uh event uh back in uh 2013 and seeing the change over the years, uh uh and uh what it has become now is probably the best networking event, together with a couple of other ones. But in in in Europe, being here is uh uh there is a lot of things happening in the data center world, a lot of conferences, but this is the one that you you have to be on, and and you're you're saving months of work with with meeting up with everyone.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

So uh I I I tend I tend to say that I think that we after 10-15 years in the industry, we know everybody. We don't, we don't we know a lot of people, but this industry is growing so fast and it's so interesting to see a lot of new players in in here in in this field. So uh that's also one of all the highlights for me of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Well let you get back to it. Thanks both your time. Good luck. We'll talk again definitely when it move along a bit, but thanks for coming on. Thank you for having us. Appreciate your time, guys. Thank you. That's it for this episode of the Inside Data Centre Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This show is brought to you by Data X and Data Exec, the recruitment partners powering global talent across the data centre and digital infrastructure world. If you enjoyed today's conversations, don't forget to follow, like, and subscribe. It really helps us grow the podcast community. Stay tuned for more stories, insights, and conversations with the people shaping the future of our industry.