Verne, a provider of sustainably powered HPC data centres across the Nordics, has acquired a strategic site in Mäntsälä, Finland, unveiling plans to build its fifth Nordic data centre.
With an initial capacity of 70MW, the Mäntsälä 10-hectare campus, a 40-minute drive from Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport, will support services to data intensive enterprises and AI innovators running high performance computing, machine learning, and other high intensity workloads, all while operating exclusively on renewable energy.
The new facility will be built in line with Verne’s best practice design principles and expertise, which aim to maximise efficiency while helping customers reduce the environmental impact of their data centre operations. In addition, the new campus will be powered by 100% renewable energy sources, while waste heat generated by the site will be harnessed to power local community heating projects.
“Verne’s Mäntsälä data centre campus represents a significant step in our mission to help global enterprises embrace advanced computing while at the same time reducing their impact on the environment,” said Dominic Ward, CEO of Verne. “This new site is part of our strategy of continuous growth across the Nordic region and marks our first new location following Ardian’s [an investment firm] acquisition of Verne.”
“Finland, with its abundant clean energy, established data centre industry, and highly skilled workforce, offers the perfect environment for our latest development,” added Ward. “We are also working in close collaboration with the Mäntsälä Municipality to ensure our latest facility benefits the local area. This includes a plan to harness the waste heat from the facility to supply hot water and heating to neighbouring districts.”
Construction of Mäntsälä will commence in “mid-2025”, and is expected to take two years to complete. Investment house Ardian acquired Verne in early 2024.
Verne’s data centre footprint currently includes three further facilities in Finland - in Helsinki, Pori, and Tampere - together with a substantial campus in Iceland, and a facility in Central London, which is optimised to support latency-sensitive applications.