Google: Google unveils first data center campus in Norway

Google has broken ground on its first data center campus in Norway, with the project scheduled to be fully live by 2026. 

“Now we are building a data center in Norway!,” Tine Austvoll Jensen, country director for Google Norway, announced on LinkedIn this week. “Today we have finally announced that we are investing €600 million ($646.4m) in the construction of a new data center in Skien. This will bring with it a number of positive ripple effects in the form of value creation and jobs both locally and nationally.”

Marius Roheim Aarvold, mayor of Skien municipality, said: “We have been waiting anxiously for Google to make the decision to start construction of its first data center here in Skien. As a municipality, we are proud to have been chosen by Google to host their major investment in Norway. We look forward to continuing to work together to realize Gromstul as a new, regional industrial area for data center operations, which is a prerequisite for our digital society.”

“Data centers are an important part of the digital foundation and make it possible to create new safe jobs, reduce emissions, and, not least, ensure a change of pace in digitalization,” said Karianne Tung, Norway’s minister of digitalization.