The first capacity from the Lappeenranta AI factory is expected to be available to customers in 2027, and it will be one of Europe’s largest dedicated AI factories when fully deployed.
The construction of the Lappeenranta AI factory follows Nebius’s recent expansion of its first Finnish data center in Mäntsälä up to 75 MW, completed earlier this year. The company plans to expand further in Finland in future as it continues its global capacity build-out.
Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius, said:
“We have been building in Finland for many years and are pleased to be expanding our presence here. Lappeenranta represents a significant addition to our global AI infrastructure build-out, and will make a significant contribution to achieving our capacity goals.”
Nebius is building one of the largest footprints of purpose-built AI compute globally and is targeting more than 3 GW of contracted power by the end of 2026. As part of this, the company recently secured approval for its first gigawatt-scale AI factory in Independence, Missouri.
In the EMEA region, the company has already secured more than 750 MW of contracted power across its own sites and colocations. In addition to its Finnish locations, Nebius is building an AI factory near Lille, France, that will have capacity of 240 MW when fully deployed.
As global demand for high-performance compute for AI training and inference continues to accelerate, Nebius’s AI factories will serve AI builders with the latest Blackwell and Rubin generations of NVIDIA accelerated compute. The Mäntsälä facility houses Europe’s first operational deployment of the NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 platform, and Nebius intends to offer the NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 platform starting later this year.
The Lappeenranta AI factory is a multi-building campus on a ca. 100-acre industrial site, and will bring substantial economic and employment benefits to the South Karelia region of Finland. The construction phase is expected to create up to 700 skilled construction jobs, mostly sourced in the Lappeenranta area, with around 100 permanent positions once the data center is operational, as well as hundreds of indirect employment opportunities for operations and maintenance.
City of Lappeenranta Mayor Tuomo Sallinen welcomed the announcement:
“Lappeenranta offers an increasingly attractive environment for innovation, with our universities playing a key role in developing top talent tailored to the needs of high-tech industries. The new data center will position our city at the forefront of Finland’s AI ecosystem and help meet Europe’s growing demand for artificial intelligence for decades to come. We’re proud that this project is being realized in Lappeenranta and in Finland, built sustainably on clean energy and driven largely by Finnish expertise.”
Nebius is actively exploring partnerships with local academic institutions via Nebius Academy to upskill local residents in AI expertise, develop the talent pipeline, and support long-term innovation and economic development in the region.
Sustainability will be a key design principle for the Lappeenranta AI factory, building on Nebius’s track record Mäntsälä, where its data center design ranks among the most energy-efficient facilities globally. Electricity sourcing will reflect Nebius’s predominantly low-carbon energy mix.
Servers will be cooled using a closed-loop liquid cooling system, eliminating the need for the AI factory to rely on water intake from local supplies and thus keeping water consumption to a minimum. As in Mäntsälä, the cooling system will be designed to integrate a heat recovery system, opening the opportunity for excess server heat to be donated to the local district heating network. In Mäntsälä, this approach avoided approximately 4,000 tonnes of CO₂e emissions associated with heat production in 2025 and reduced heating costs for connected households by around 10%.
