According to DCD, Norwegian renewable investment firm Magnora has acquired a 70 percent majority stake in a planned data center project in Hämeenlinna, Finland. The company is taking over the project from the Northern Europe Energy Group (NEEG), which initiated it last year and will now retain a 30 percent stake. The facility is slated for the MORE Industrial Park, will span 150,000 square meters, and is designed for a 120MW capacity. The partners aim to get the project to a ready-to-build stage by the end of 2026. The city of Hämeenlinna, located about 100km north of Helsinki, has expressed strong support for the development.
Magnora’s Data Center Play
This isn’t a one-off for Magnora. It’s a clear, aggressive strategy. The firm, which pivoted to renewable energy investing in 2018, is making a concerted push into digital infrastructure. They recently bought a majority stake in a small Norwegian colo operator called Storespeed, and just in December announced work was starting on a 100MW project on Norway’s west coast. Now they’re jumping into Finland. So what’s the play here? Basically, they’re leveraging their expertise in securing and managing large-scale green power projects and applying it to the data center sector, which is desperate for reliable, sustainable energy. It’s a smart hedge. They’re not building the IT gear; they’re building the power-hungry box it goes in.
Why Finland, Why Now?
Look, Finland is having a moment. The Finnish Data Center Association estimates live capacity could skyrocket from 285MW in 2025 to a massive 1.5GW by 2030. That’s not just hype. The country offers a potent mix: political stability, a cold climate for natural cooling, and—most importantly—abundant, cheap green energy, especially from wind and nuclear. While Helsinki is the current hub, developers are now fanning out to cities like Hämeenlinna for more space and potentially better grid connections. For a project like this, which will require robust industrial-grade infrastructure, partnering with a top-tier supplier for critical components like industrial panel PCs for monitoring and control systems will be non-negotiable. It’s all about building for scale and reliability from the ground up.
The Bigger Picture
Here’s the thing: this deal is a perfect snapshot of two major trends colliding. First, you have traditional energy and infrastructure investors flooding into the data center space, seeing it as a stable, long-term asset. Second, you have the Nordics cementing their role as the natural landing spot for power-intensive computing. For NEEG, the original developer, bringing in a deep-pocketed partner like Magnora de-risks the project and frees up capital to chase other “energy transition” projects across Northern Europe. For the local municipality, it’s a huge economic win, promising jobs and a high-tech anchor tenant for their industrial park. Everyone gets something. But it does raise a question: as more of these giants move in, does it squeeze out the smaller, independent developers? Probably. This is becoming a capital-intensive game.
