Google Breaks Ground on Its First Data Center in Sweden

Location and timeline: A nine-year journey from paper to pavement

Google acquired the Horndal site in 2017 with no immediate construction timeline, describing it as a potential data center location. The company obtained planning permission from Sweden’s Land and Environment Court in mid-2025, with a condition that it must begin construction within a decade or risk losing it.

Breaking ground in 2026 puts the project nine years from the original land purchase to the start of physical work. The facility will be built by nearly 60 Swedish suppliers, with additional employment expected during the construction phase.

Jobs and community investment: €5 million to support local growth

Once operational, the data center will generate 100 direct full-time jobs in technical roles such as computer technicians, electrical and mechanical engineers, security, and facilities management.

Google also announced a €5 million (approximately $5.5 million) community fund to back local projects. The fund is targeted at education, sustainability, economic development, digital skills, and workforce training initiatives in the surrounding area.

Environmental design: Air cooling and heat recovery

Instead of relying on water-intensive cooling systems, Google designed the Horndal data center to be air-cooled, which is a deliberate choice to limit water consumption. The facility is also engineered for off-site heat recovery, enabling excess thermal energy to be captured and reused by the local community rather than vented into the atmosphere.

On the energy side, Google says it has backed more than 700 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity on the Swedish grid since signing its first power purchase agreement in the country in 2013. The company's cloud region in Sweden, launched in 2025, is projected to run on at least 99% carbon-free energy in its first full year, owing to Sweden’s clean electricity mix.

Role in European expansion: Serving cloud and AI from Horndal

The Horndal site is one of Google’s owned-and-operated European data centers and will handle growing demand for Google Cloud, AI workloads, Search, Workspace, and YouTube across Europe and globally.

It follows the launch of the Stockholm cloud region (Europe-north2) in March 2025, which was Google's 42nd cloud region worldwide and its 13th in Europe. Combined, the Stockholm region and the new Horndal facility cement Sweden as a pillar of Google’s infrastructure strategy in the Nordics.

Horndal also adds to Google’s existing European data center footprint, which includes its well-known Hamina, Finland facility, a former paper mill that operates on 97% carbon-free energy and serves as another example of the company's focus on sustainable site design.