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Cheaper, cleaner electricity draws TikTok to Finland for new data centre amid data privacy complaints
The announcement of a new data centre in Finland comes at a time when Europe has been sceptical about TikTok sharing data of European users to the Chinese government read more
A general view of the offices of TikTok, as the site faces an April 5 deadline to reach a deal to find a non-Chinese buyer under threat of being banned from the United States, in Culver City, California, US, April 2, 2025. File Image/Reuters
TikTok has announced the creation of a data centre in Finland, as the video-sharing platform plans to migrate data storage to Europe exclusively for users living in the continent.
The development was told to Reuters by a spokesperson of the company, who said that TikTok will invest 1 billion euros in the project.
This comes at a time when Europe has been sceptical about TikTok sharing data of European users to the Chinese government.
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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.
However, measures like these have not been proven enough for lawmakers in several countries, the European Parliament or the European Commission, many of whom have banned TikTok from official devices due to privacy concerns.
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 US.
'Project Clover' in Norway was TikTok's flagship data centre, which went fully operational in April. The company, 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 the availability of cheap, emission-free electricity.
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.
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With inputs from Reuters
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