Brookfield Place in Toronto's financial district in September 2023. Brookfield plans to invest up to 95 billion Swedish crowns (US$9.9-billion) to build a data centre in the Swedish city of Strangnas.Andrew Lahodynskyj/The Canadian Press
Brookfield Asset Management BAM-T plans to invest up to 95 billion Swedish crowns (US$9.9-billion) to build a data centre for artificial intelligence in Sweden, the Canadian company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Increased use of AI and requirements to host data within Europe have led to a boom in data centres on the continent, with companies such as Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet choosing Sweden for their sites due to its reliable electricity supplies, connectivity and infrastructure.
Brookfield has been investing heavily in Europe and earlier this year laid out plans to invest €20-billion to develop AI projects in France, making it Europe’s largest AI infrastructure cluster.
“To compete in the development of AI and realize its economic productivity, it is important to invest at scale in the infrastructure underpinning this technology,” said Sikander Rashid, head of Europe at Brookfield.
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Brookfield said its data centre in the Swedish city of Strangnas, west of Stockholm, would create more than 1,000 permanent jobs and around 2,000 jobs during a 10 to 15 year construction process.
“I find it especially exciting that it is in my hometown,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X, welcoming the announcement.
The site is not only close to the capital Stockholm, but also other university towns such as Eskilstuna, Västerås, Linköping and Uppsala.
Brookfield already owns a property at the site and is looking to sign a land allocation agreement with the municipality to plan for two years to build the AI centre.
If the conditions for an AI centre are in place, the municipality will sell the land to Brookfield for 525 million crowns, but in the event of unmet conditions, the land will return to the municipality, Strangnas municipality said.
Beyond building data centres, chipmaker Nvidia said last month it would provide its latest generation AI data centre platform to a group of Swedish companies to develop AI infrastructure in Sweden.