Facing widespread public opposition to the prospect of large, noisy and extremely power-hungry data centers springing up all over the place, Google and its Big Tech competitors have deployed the PR pros to tell the world: “Hey, we get it.” “Early public consultation is increasingly a very important part of the process,” Devi Thomas, Google’s global head of community development and engagement, told the this week. In September, Donald Trump aired his frustrations over Google’s investments in Finland over Truth Social, railing against calls for regulation on AI and data center expansion. It took a month for Google to deliver a compelling demonstration of why some of those pesky regulations exist in the first place.
The debacle unfolding in Finland’s forests demonstrates exactly why so many Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of one of these facilities being built in their backyard. In September, Google announced a €13 billion ($15 billion) investment in Finnish digital infrastructure, promising thousands of jobs, environmental restoration, and economic growth. In a press release, the company specifically hailed its operations in Finland as a model for “responsibly building AI infrastructure.” But in the municipalities of Muhos and Otanmäki, Google’s subsidiary had already felled hundreds of hectares of woodland, uprooting an estimated 400,000 trees.
The topsoil was removed, roads were constructed and drainage channels were bored. Vast, muddy expanses of exposed earth now lie where pristine forests once stood. Then on Thursday, regulators reported that roughly five miles of drainage ditches at Muhos had already been dug without the required advance notification, and referred the project to the police for inspection amid concerns over excess metals being released into nearby waterways.
Finland’s Licensing and Supervision Authority (LVV) had already ordered Google to halt further work in early October until all the necessary environmental assessments were finished. But what good is an environmental review if a company with such extraordinary wealth, power and will has already stripped away the environment it was supposed to assess? Facing public scrutiny by Finnish authorities and the press, Google’s country director Antti Järvinen delivered a statement in which he said officials were fully aware of the company’s activities, but said Google “takes full responsibility for what has happened.” “All decisions were made based on the best understanding we had of the legislation at the time,” he told the Finnish media.
I want to apologize for that.” A Google spokesperson told Newsweek, “We have operated in Finland for 15 years and have always worked to meet or exceed zoning, environmental, health, and safety requirements. After receiving the LVV letters on 6 October, we stopped preparatory works at Muhos and Kajaani and have submitted a formal response to LVV confirming this. We look forward to maintaining an active, open dialogue with all authorities to strengthen our partnership with Finland and local organizations.” The company is now waiting for the LVV’s verdict before construction continues, and says it will plant new trees across 130 hectares of land in the meantime.
Whether the Finnish public will consider that anything other than a token gesture before the tech behemoth goes ahead as planned is another matter. Then there’s the question of electricity, of which any data center in Finland and beyond needs a lot to function. To power its expanding Finnish operations, Google signed a 22-year deal with Fortum to buy up to half the output of the Loviisa nuclear power plant, which generates around 10 percent of Finland’s electricity.
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