By Supantha Mukherjee
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Brookfield Asset Management plans to invest up to 95 billion Swedish crowns ($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.
BAM has been investing heavily in Europe and earlier this year laid out plans to invest 20 billion euros 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 BAM.
BAM 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 10-15 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.
BAM 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 BAM 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.
($1 = 9.5845 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm. Writing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen. Editing by Terje Solsvik and Mark Potter)