Exclusive-TikTok plans to build 1 billion euro data centre in Finland, spokesman confirms

By Supantha Mukherjee and Anne Kauranen

STOCKHOLM/HELSINKI (Reuters) -TikTok plans to invest 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) to build its first data centre in Finland as it moves data storage for European users to the continent, a TikTok spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.

The spokesman declined to give further details as he confirmed the plan revealed to Reuters by two sources familiar with the matter.

Finland's Prime Minister's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok, owned by China-headquartered Bytedance, has been trying to address concerns over whether the Chinese government could access the data of European citizens who use TikTok. In 2023, it launched a new data security regime, nicknamed "Project Clover," with plans to invest 12 billion euros over 10 years amid growing pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. Several countries, the European Parliament, European Commission and others have banned TikTok from staff phones due to privacy concerns, while the U.S. government has threatened to ban the app in the U.S. on national security grounds unless the company's U.S. assets are divested.

TikTok has called the bans misguided, based on fundamental misconceptions. On its website TikTok says European user data is stored in a dedicated European data enclave, hosted across data centres in Norway, Ireland, and the U.S.

Under Project Clover, TikTok's first data centre in Norway went fully online this month after work started in 2023.

TikTok, which has over 175 million users in Europe, plans to announce more data centres in the coming years, sources said. Nordic countries have become attractive destinations for data centres for technology companies ranging from Microsoft to Meta as the colder temperatures reduce energy costs, alongside availability of cheap, emission-free electricity. "Finland is definitely one of the places where we're continuing to build out our infrastructure," Microsoft President Brad Smith said on Wednesday in Brussels. "First we have a lot of access to carbon free energy, and second, it's got good connectivity, so we are able to serve much of Europe from Finland," he said.

More than 20 new data centres are being planned in Finland, amounting to some 13 billion euros in value and 1.3 gigawatts in capacity, Veijo Terho, chairman of the Finnish Data Centre Association said.($1 = 0.8801 euros)

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm, Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)