Google’s data centers are expanding to support its AI ambitions, and a new project in Finland shows one way the company is trying to grapple with the environmental impact of that growth. Google will drop €1 billion to expand its data center in Finland to “further unlock the potential of AI,” the company said in an emailed press release today. It includes plans to reuse heat from the data center to warm nearby homes, schools, and public buildings.
There’s also growing concern about fossil fuel power plants meeting that demand at a time when they need to be replaced with renewable energy to keep climate change from becoming a bigger disaster. To literally take some of the heat off the expansion of its Finland data center, Google struck up a partnership with the municipality of Hamina and the city-owned energy provider Haminan Energia.