Dive Brief:
- Google is planning to invest over $15 billion (13 billion euros) in digital infrastructure to power its data center developments in Finland and Europe more broadly, the global tech conglomerate said Wednesday. The funding represents “the company’s largest single investment in Europe,” Ruth Porat, the president of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said in the press release.
- The investments include a 22-year power purchase agreement Google signed with Finnish state-owned energy company Fortum. The deal will help keep a nuclear power plant online and allow Google to purchase up to half of its operating capacity, Fortum said in a separate announcement.
- The deal with Fortum represents Google’s first nuclear PPA in Europe and its “first partnership to enable nuclear life extension and uprates globally,” the tech giant’s director and head of advanced energy technologies Lucia Tian said in a LinkedIn post Wednesday.
Dive Insight:
Google has a 2030 net-zero target, but the company has reported rising emissions each of the past three years, and blamed its artificial intelligence buildout for an 18% increase in its carbon emissions last year in its latest sustainability report. The search engine and tech conglomerate’s 2025 carbon footprint was 81% higher than its 2019 baseline.
To help reach its net-zero target, Google also has a 2030 goal to power all of its operations and data centers on 24/7 carbon-free energy. In addition to its nuclear PPA, Google also announced that it had signed onshore wind PPAs and contracted a 94 megawatt battery system that will connect to Finland’s grid near one of its data centers once operational in late 2027.
“This investment underscores Google’s commitment to grow our presence responsibly, pairing the expansion of our technical infrastructure with new energy capacity, grid enhancements and energy affordability initiatives,” Porat, who serves as Alphabet and Google’s president and chief investment officer, said in the company’s release.
Fortum said its PPA with Google will give the nuclear power plant, located in Loviisa, Finland, “the revenue certainty” to make investments needed to extend the plant’s life until 2050. The plant already had a 38 MW increase in capacity planned and is expected to come online in 2028; the agreement with Google will enable another 100 MW of additional capacity at the plant, Fortum added.
Google’s deal will begin with it receiving a smaller amount of electric capacity, before it expands to allow for the purchase of up to 50% of the plant’s capacity from 2030-49, according to Fortum.
Google and Fortum also signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the development of “new nuclear, renewable energy and flexibility capacity solutions” to support Google’s infrastructure in the region.
Google’s announced onshore wind PPAs were signed with France-based energy producer Valorem, which revealed in a separate press release that it signed a 10-year PPA with Google in 2024. The PPA gives the tech giant access to power produced by Valorem’s 148.5 MW onshore wind farm, which has been operational since August 2025, according to Valorem.
Google has operated in Finland for over 15 years, and the company’s digital infrastructure investments will include data center construction to support cloud and AI infrastructure in the region. The company will also invest around $36 million (31 million euros) over four years into community initiatives, including $11.64 million (10 million euros) for research and innovation, per the release. As part of its investments to support the labor and workforce in Finland, Google also plans to back AI education programs and said it aims to train 4,400 workers in AI skills through its AI Opportunity Fund and train up to 100 students for data center careers, according to the release.
While Google’s deal with Fortum represents its first European nuclear deal, the company has signed multiple nuclear power agreements in the U.S.
The company is looking to bring an advanced nuclear reactor to Tennessee by 2030 through a deal with Kairos Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the company also made a deal with NextEra that will help restart an Iowa nuclear facility. It was announced Tuesday that the same Iowa facility just received a $1.9 billion loan from the Department of Energy to enable its renewed operations.
