Google Breaks Ground On Its First Data Center In Sweden

Google has started construction on its first data centre in Sweden, breaking ground on a new facility in Horndal to support growing demand for its services, including Search, Google Cloud and YouTube.

The investment marks a new phase in Google’s presence in the country, which dates back to its first Swedish office in 2004. According to the company, the data centre is expected to generate 100 direct jobs and is aimed at helping more Swedish businesses, creators and developers build and scale digital services.

Google says the Horndal facility is being built with a focus on sustainability. The data centre is planned to use air cooling, a design choice intended to limit water consumption, which is a significant factor in large-scale computing operations.

The site is also being prepared for off-site heat recovery, with the goal of making excess heat from the facility available to help warm local homes and businesses. This aligns with Google’s broader sustainability efforts in Sweden, where the company reports having supported the addition of more than 700 megawatts of renewable energy to the national grid since 2013.

Alongside the data centre project, Google is launching a EUR 5 million fund to support local community initiatives. The fund will focus on three areas: education, sustainability and workforce development.

The aim is to help create jobs and broaden access to opportunities linked to the digital economy, so that communities around Horndal and the wider region can benefit from the new infrastructure investment.