Inside TikTok town: vast data centre sparks Chinese spying fears
Kouvola needs all the jobs it can get. Young Finns who have not already left a small city so drab it could be stuck in the Soviet Union struggle to find work.
So when an international company called Hyperco announced it would exploit the freezing north's temperatures and ready access to cold water to build a data centre in the area, there was general acceptance of it being a pretty good thing.
After all, the few million euros paid for a parcel of empty land seemed a good deal for everybody.
• UK economy boosted as USS invests in Blackstone data centre plan
Once the data centre was up and running by the end of next year there would be taxes, too, to collect from
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