According to a fresh report, foreign-owned data centres could bring Finland tens of thousands of jobs and billions of euros in economic impact.
Foreign companies’ server farms in Finland could generate as many as 50,000 person-years of work and economic benefits worth some 11 billion euros within the next decade – at least according to a report published on Monday by the Finnish division of the Nordic consultancy Oxford Research (OR).
The study notes that as much as 110 billion euros is being invested in data centres worldwide each year. It cites predictions that 60 major new data centres will be set up in Europe by the year 2020. Finland has strong attributes for attracting a share of these centres, the group says, including its energy system, availability of developable land and facilities, network connections, safe environment and cool climate. The latter is a big plus as data centres generate a lot of heat, so are expensive to keep cool in warmer countries. The consultants also believe that Finland’s legislation governing such facilities could give it a competitive edge.
OR calculates that server centres being established by Google, Microsoft and Russia’s Yandex have a combined value of some 1.3 billion euros.
Read more: Yle
