Nebius to build 310 MW AI factory in Finland as it targets 3GW of global compute capacity
What's the deal? Nebius, the Amsterdam-based AI cloud company, has announced construction of a 310 MW AI factory in Lappeenranta, Finland — set to be one of Europe's largest dedicated AI compute facilities when fully deployed. The first capacity is expected to be available to customers in 2027. The announcement follows Nebius's earlier expansion of its existing Finnish data centre in Mäntsälä to 75 MW, completed earlier this year.
The Lappeenranta campus spans roughly 100 acres and will create up to 700 construction jobs and around 100 permanent positions once operational.
Why now? Nebius is in aggressive expansion mode, targeting more than 3 gigawatts of contracted power globally by end of 2026. It has already secured more than 750 MW across EMEA, and recently received approval for its first gigawatt-scale AI factory in Independence, Missouri. The Lappeenranta facility adds meaningfully to that target while extending its European footprint alongside a 240 MW site under construction near Lille, France.
Demand for high-performance AI compute — for both training and inference — continues to accelerate, and Nebius is positioning itself to serve that demand with the latest Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin hardware. Its Mäntsälä facility already houses Europe's first operational deployment of the Nvidia GB300 NVL72 platform.
What could go wrong? Data centre construction at this scale is capital-intensive and subject to delays — in permitting, equipment delivery, and grid connection. Nebius is a relatively young independent company, having listed on Nasdaq, and its ability to execute across multiple large simultaneous builds in different jurisdictions will be tested.
The AI compute market is also intensifying. Hyperscalers including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all building out European capacity aggressively, and purpose-built AI cloud providers face the risk of being squeezed between large incumbents above and cheaper regional players below.
The signal: Nebius's Finnish expansion reflects Finland's growing attractiveness as a data centre location — clean energy, stable grid, cool climate for efficient cooling, and proximity to major European markets. The Lappeenranta facility's design includes liquid cooling and heat recovery, with excess server heat feeding the local district heating network — a model that reduced CO₂e emissions by roughly 4,000 tonnes in Mäntsälä in 2025. As European governments push for AI sovereignty and energy efficiency, infrastructure built around these principles is increasingly well-positioned to win public and enterprise customers who care about both supply chain independence and sustainability credentials.
A.M.
