Published 2026-09-12 · Event 2026-09-09

Google says it will invest at least €13 billion in Finland in 2027–2028; that is not Horndal

On 9 September 2026 Google announced plans to invest at least €13 billion in Finnish digital infrastructure over 2027–2028, naming Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala, plus energy partnerships with Fingrid, Fortum and wind counterparties. The notice is a Finnish investment and siting story. It does not publish a Swedish megawatt and does not update Horndal’s 2026 groundbreaking.

Google’s 9 September 2026 press notice is the dated Nordic-neighbour source used here. It says the company plans to invest at least €13 billion in digital infrastructure in Finland over the next two years (2027–2028), including data-center and supporting infrastructure in Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala. Google calls this its largest single investment in Europe. Those sentences are a Finnish envelope and a named four-municipality list. They are not a Swedish campus budget.

Energy instruments in the same notice must keep their Finnish geography. Google describes a partnership with Fingrid and Business Finland to identify grid-friendly locations in the production-dominated north. It announces a 22-year life-extension power-purchase agreement with Fortum for the Loviisa nuclear plant near Hamina, a memorandum of understanding on flexibility and possible new nuclear at Loviisa, additional onshore wind PPAs that bring new-to-the-grid wind supported by Google to 629 MW, and a contracted 94 MW battery near Kajaani expected in late 2027. Those are Finnish grid and generation claims. They are not SE1–SE4 allocations.

Heat language is already split by country in this register. The September notice says Hamina pioneered seawater cooling and off-site heat recovery designed to cover 80 percent of the annual heat needs of the Hamina district-heating network. It also repeats that Google embeds heat-recovery readiness in all new European data centers. Readiness is the verb used for new sites. The 80 percent sentence is attached to Hamina. Neither sentence is a Horndal delivery.

Fingrid’s quoted rationale is comparative, not transferable arithmetic. The TSO chief executive is quoted as welcoming projects in Muhos, Kajaani and Vaala “where they can grow as there is significant grid capacity for electricity consumption in the production dominated north.” That is a Finnish system sentence. It does not license a reader to paste “northern capacity” onto Luleå, Boden or Sollefteå. Svenska kraftnät’s own queue and reservation papers remain the Swedish artefacts.

DataCenterSweden records 9 September 2026 as an international investment notice that changes the Nordic comparison set. Horndal stays on the 2 June 2026 groundbreaking sources. No Finnish megawatt, nuclear PPA or battery figure is written into a Swedish cell. The useful question is how a neighbour pairs halls with named generation and a TSO siting story — not whether Sweden has silently received €13 billion.

Why it matters

A dated Finnish envelope is the first major Nordic hyperscale press of September 2026. It is decision-useful as a neighbour comparison and harmful if rewritten as Swedish megawatts or as delivered Horndal heat.

What remains unknown

The notice does not publish IT-load megawatts for the four Finnish municipalities, does not state which halls will be energised in 2027–2028, and does not update the Swedish Horndal file.

Sources