TikTok said it will invest 1 billion euros to build a data centre in Finland. The announcement comes days after the EU slapped it with a massive fine, accusing the Chinese-owned company of sending Europeans' personal data to China.
TikTok plans to build its first data centre in Finland as it moves data storage for European users to the continent. TikTok, owned by China-headquartered Bytedance, has been trying to address concerns over whether the Chinese government could access the data of European citizens who use TikTok.
According to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the data center will be built in Kouvola in Southeast Finland and will employ approximately 1,000 people during the construction phase and hundreds more once completed. According to investment company Hyperco, construction is about to begin. Hyperco and its financiers own the data center and Tiktok will be renting the building.
In 2023, TikTok launched a new data security regime, nicknamed "Project Clover," with plans to invest 12 billion euros over 10 years amid growing pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. Under this project, TikTok's first data centre in Norway went online this month. TikTok, which has over 175 million users in Europe, plans to announce more data centres in the coming years.
