TikTok is investing €1 billion in a second data center in Finland.

      The new facility in Lahti is part of TikTok’s €12 billion Project Clover, aimed at ensuring data sovereignty for European users. In 2024, Finland’s defense ministry approved the initial investment for the data center without notifying elected officials. A former minister has publicly urged for a reevaluation of the project.

      On Wednesday, TikTok announced its plan to invest €1 billion ($1.16 billion) to develop a second data center in Finland, which will be situated in the Kiverio district of Lahti, a city with a population of around 121,000 in southern Finland. The center will initially have a capacity of 50 megawatts, with a maximum potential capacity of 128 megawatts. Construction is anticipated to be finished within a year, aiming for the center to be operational by 2027.

      This investment in Lahti marks the second data center for TikTok in Finland and is part of Project Clover, the company’s €12 billion initiative to ensure the data of over 200 million European users is stored and processed in Europe. TikTok’s first data center in Finland, located in Kouvola, is expected to become operational by the end of 2026. At present, European user data is safeguarded across three sites in Norway, Ireland, and the United States. TikTok has promoted both Finnish investments as steps toward entirely removing European data from US-based infrastructure.

      This announcement comes at a challenging time, as ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company based in China, narrowly avoided a ban in the US in January due to data protection issues. In Europe, regulators and governments are increasing their scrutiny of social media platforms concerning child safety, making TikTok’s significant investment in European infrastructure both a business necessity and a strategic political move.

      Coinciding with TikTok's announcement for the Lahti center, Greece revealed plans to prohibit children under 15 from using social media starting January 2027, with its prime minister urging the EU to implement similar measures.

      The political reaction in Finland has been mixed. The initial approval for the data center investment came from Finland’s defense ministry in 2024 without informing elected representatives. Wille Rydman, who was then the minister of economic affairs, publicly called for the project to be "reconsidered" upon its disclosure, citing security issues and a perceived lack of transparency surrounding the company’s intentions. Rydman expressed hope that TikTok’s local partner would reconsider its association with the company. In contrast, the mayor of Lahti, Niko Kyynäräinen, welcomed the investment, viewing it as significant for a city of its size.

      Finland has increasingly become an attractive location for hyperscale data center investments, drawing major operators like Microsoft and Google, partly due to its cool climate, access to inexpensive renewable energy, and stable regulatory framework.