Finland wary of building a €1 billion data center for TikTok
The Nordic country is experiencing a boom in these investments attracted by cheap energy, despite doubts about the security they generate.
CopenhagenThe construction of a data center to serve TikTok has raised many eyebrows in Finland. In recent years, the construction of this type of infrastructure, which is key to the functioning of the internet, has boomed in the Nordic country, thanks to access to low-cost electricity, good connectivity, and a cold climate that allows servers to be cooled. However, data centers also raise important questions about the security of the data they store, their energy consumption, and the low economic impact they generate for the site that hosts them.
The project being built in southern Finland to store TikTok's data has a planned investment of €1 billion and will be located in the city of Kouvola, about 140 kilometers from Helsinki. Initially, the project's investors remained somewhat opaque, even from the Finnish government, until a public media investigation Yle revealed that the person behind it was the Chinese data infrastructure company GDK Holdings, which maintains connections with TikTok.
Concern in Finland over the security of this data center has been growing after the European Union imposed a €530 million fine on TikTok in early May for violating the data security rules it manages. The EU found that TikTok's Chinese employees had access to European user data, and that some of that information had been transferred outside the EU. The underlying fear is that Chinese government authorities have access to European user data, thanks to Chinese law that offers less protection against state data control. These fears have been expressed by several European intelligence services, including Finland's Secret Service (SUPO).
From the Finnish government, Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman admitted that he had learned "by surprise" of TikTok's plans to open a data center in the country, and described the situation as "atypical and complicated." Rydman also expressed concern that TikTok's data center could strain relations between Finland and the United States. The Finnish minister cited tactics that, according to an investigation by the outlet, Financial Times, Chinese companies would have used data centers in foreign countries to gain access to high-performance chips developed by American companies and which are currently restricted for Chinese companies: "There is a legitimate concern about whether this is the real reason why TikTok wants to rent a data center in Finland," he said. Yle.
However, the country's own prime minister, Petteri Orpo, sought to allay the concerns expressed by his minister: he indicated that the Ministry of Defense had approved the construction of the center and affirmed that his country "is working on a roadmap to attract the data economy with projects" such as TikT's.
From TikTok, Christian Hannibal, head of public policy in Finland, stressed that they had chosen Finland "for its good infrastructure, skilled labor, and access to energy produced from diverse sources." Hannibal explained that the center will create 200 new jobs, despite Finnish media initially reporting thousands of employees, detailing that the center "will play a key role" in ensuring that European users' data is physically stored and managed from Europe, where the platform currently claims to have 7.
A controversial energy consumption
Beyond TikTok's data center, other tech companies such as Microsoft and Meta have also established data centers in Finland, where more than 20 new investments of this type are currently planned, with an estimated value of around €13 billion. Jukka Manner, professor of communications engineering and internet technology at Aalto University, rules out that data centers pose a particular security risk to the host country, "since the data is controlled and accessed abroad." Manner also points out: "What's the difference between TikTok, Meta, or Google? No one has access to what happens in these centers, but if TikTok isn't a banned service in Europe, I don't understand why there's so much controversy about it."
The expert explains that the large amount of electricity and water required by data centers is necessary to cool the rows of computers that are constantly in operation: "In Finland it is much cheaper to maintain cooling, just open the windows in winter, but in countries like Ireland there is a 2 risk when there is not enough electricity supply and the price of energy increases," he says.
