Kenneth Glad
Large international projects often come with promises of new jobs and economic growth for rural communities. But they can also bring major changes to the surrounding area, and not everyone welcomes them. In northern Europe, one tech giant’s plans have now run into a serious legal obstacle.
Finnish police have opened a criminal investigation into a Google subsidiary over a planned datacentre. Officers suspect the company broke environmental laws in the town of Muhos.
Before officials could finish mandatory environmental checks, builders allegedly cleared and drained 330 hectares of local forest.
According to The Guardian, the land belongs to Tuike Finland, which is owned by Google. The US tech firm wants to build a giant artificial intelligence hub there.
Work stops entirely
The project is part of a massive €13bn investment plan across the country. Finland offers cold weather and stable politics, making it a prime spot for these energy-hungry facilities.
But regulators recently forced Google to stop work at both the Muhos site and a second location in Otanmäki.
The supervisory agency ordered the company to halt “preparatory measures altering the environment”, The Guardian reported. Campaign groups calculate that workers have already cut down 400,000 trees across both areas.
Police released a statement on Thursday explaining their next steps.
A costly misunderstanding
“Based on preliminary information, there have been ambiguities and shortcomings in the drainage and water management at the construction site of Tuike Finland Oy’s datacentre project,” Finnish police said.
They added that “the criminal investigation will examine, among other things, circumstances related to these issues”.
Google’s country manager for Finland, Antti Järvinen, has apologized for cutting down the trees. However, he claimed the tech firm operated under “the best understanding we had of the legislation at the time”, as noted by The Guardian.
Locals push back
Government leaders initially cheered the project. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said last month that bringing in foreign money was a “top priority” and promised the datacentres would “deliver lasting benefits”.
Ordinary citizens feel very differently. More than 93,000 people have signed a petition demanding stricter rules and payback for the ruined nature.
Some experts agree with the public outrage. Jussi Kangasharju, a computer science professor at the University of Helsinki, told The Guardian that datacentres bring few local jobs.
“Really, for Finland, there are no benefits,” Kangasharju said. He pointed out that the facilities mostly serve foreign users, adding: “Datacentres ultimately have little benefit for others except the datacentre operator.”
