Juha Sipilä warns Finland could become an AI backwater – data centres must offer more than electricity

FINLAND'S AI FUTURE WILL NOT BE DECIDED BY SERVER ROOMS ALONE

Data centres planned for Finland could bring investment, jobs and demand for electricity production. Former prime minister Juha Sipilä believes that is not enough: Finland should also use the investments to strengthen its own AI expertise and businesses.

Speaking in Kauppalehti's Talousaamu weekend programme on 18 October, Sipilä warned that Finland could remain on the sidelines of AI development if it only sells land and electricity to international companies. He also sees an opportunity to join global technology-industry value chains.

In the interview, Sipilä particularly stressed practical applications of AI. He argued that Finnish companies, researchers and the public sector should have the courage to turn available computing power into new products and services.

A DATA CENTRE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MAKE FINLAND AN AI POWERHOUSE

A data centre is a building and technical infrastructure containing servers, networking equipment and the necessary power and cooling systems. It may serve cloud services, enterprise software, or the training and operation of AI models.

Even large investments do not in themselves guarantee that new AI models will be developed in Finland, researchers will be employed, or domestic software businesses will emerge. Such benefits depend on what the centres are used for, partnerships with universities and companies, and access to computing capacity for Finnish organisations.

Sipilä also highlighted possible links to international technology companies such as Google. In his view, investments could help Finland gain a stronger position in technology research and development. This is an opportunity suggested by Sipilä, not confirmation of any agreed research or development partnership.

ENERGY, WASTE HEAT AND PEAK ELECTRICITY DEMAND

Sipilä proposes obligations for data-centre operators concerning power generation, balancing electricity-demand peaks and using the waste heat produced by their operations. He believes the sector's current profitability would allow companies to assume broader responsibilities.

These are policy proposals, not new legal obligations currently in force. Implementing them would require separate assessments of effects on energy markets, the electricity grid and investments.

Data centres require a steady electricity supply and substantial cooling. Recovering waste heat and adjusting consumption may, in suitable locations, reduce pressure on the energy system or benefit district-heating networks. The practical opportunities vary from project to project.

LUMI IN KAJAANI SHOWS FINLAND ALREADY HAS COMPUTING EXPERTISE

In the Kauppalehti interview, Sipilä pointed to the LUMI supercomputer in Kajaani as an existing Finnish strength.

LUMI is a European high-performance computing system hosted in CSC's Kajaani data centre. According to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, its measured performance is about 386 petaflops, and it ranked 11th in the world on the June 2026 TOP500 supercomputer list.

Its computing resources are used for scientific research, simulations and AI, among other applications. Its importance goes beyond the hardware: research expertise, services and international partnerships have developed around it.

A NEW LUMI-AI SYSTEM HAS ALREADY BEEN ORDERED

Finland's position is supported by a contract signed in August 2026 for the next-generation LUMI-AI supercomputer. EuroHPC JU ordered the system for the LUMI AI Factory in Kajaani.

EuroHPC puts the total contract value at EUR 387.8 million. The goal is to increase AI computing capacity by up to ten times compared with the current LUMI system. The system is expected to become available to users in 2027. These are project targets, not achievements already demonstrated.

LUMI-AI is intended especially for European startups, small and medium-sized businesses, and research institutions. Such infrastructure could give Finnish developers access to computing resources that would otherwise be difficult to obtain.

THE PROMPT ANALYSIS: WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT WE DO WITH COMPUTING POWER

Sipilä's point highlights an important distinction: the country where an investment is located does not automatically become the developer or owner of the resulting technology.

To strengthen its position in the AI economy, Finland needs more than data centres. It also needs education, research, business research and development, and opportunities to deploy advanced models in industry, healthcare and services. Publicly funded computing capacity such as LUMI-AI could complement commercial cloud services.

Another question concerns the energy impact of data centres. Their overall benefit depends on the eventual scale of jobs and tax revenues, what is required of the power system, and whether waste heat can be used. A single data-centre project cannot provide a universal answer.

Sipilä's warning can be summed up as follows: Finland can provide infrastructure for the AI economy, or it can also try to build its own expertise and competitiveness on top of that infrastructure. The options are not mutually exclusive, but the latter requires deliberate decisions.

SOURCES

Kauppalehti / Talousaamu, Juho Silventoinen and Mari Haavisto, 18 October 2026: https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/7b81c665-8954-4ae1-a0fa-9f33b7c73eaa

EuroHPC JU, LUMI-AI procurement contract, 31 August 2026: https://www.eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-ju-signs-contract-deploy-lumi-ai-supercomputer-2026-08-31_en

EuroHPC JU, technical details of LUMI: https://www.eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/supercomputers/our-supercomputers_en