Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) announced a 165 MW AI data center in Mikkeli, Finland, with Compute Nordic Finland. The initial 50 MW of contracted IT capacity is already under construction.
The partners plan to increase capacity from 50 MW to 80 MW before reaching the full 165 MW. Cerebras said multiple service orders cover the capacity, with each carrying a seven-year term.
An assessment cited by Cerebras estimated €1.0 billion to €1.7 billion of regional investment at full build-out. The project could support 80 to 250 direct permanent jobs and generate between €0.8 million and €2.5 million in annual property-tax revenue.
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Seven-year orders support the build-out
Compute Nordic Finland CEO Pyry Virrantaus said the phased project is backed by existing demand rather than projected customer interest.
“This partnership with Cerebras is not a speculative bet on future demand — it’s a contractually committed, phased build-out that reflects exactly how much AI compute the market needs today and where that need is heading,” Virrantaus said in the project announcement.
Compute Nordic Finland will oversee development, operations, customer relationships and program governance. Cerebras intends to use the facility for its high-density AI compute platform.
The partners have identified permanent positions in site operations, power and cooling engineering, networking, security, and facility management. The employment estimate comes from a Ramboll market study and impact assessment dated September 12, 2025.
Closed-loop cooling and heat recovery
Closed-loop cooling is part of the Mikkeli facility’s design, recirculating water instead of continuously drawing it from the municipal supply. It also incorporates heat-recovery infrastructure intended to make thermal energy from the compute systems available to the surrounding community.
“Our architecture is built to get more useful AI output out of every megawatt we deploy,” Cerebras CEO and co-founder Andrew Feldman said. “Mikkeli lets us pair that efficiency with a data centre designed for closed-loop cooling and heat reuse from the ground up.”
Cerebras did not provide a commissioning schedule for each phase or disclose pricing under the service orders. The announcement also did not say when the heat-recovery system would begin supplying the community.
Mikkeli anchors Cerebras’ European expansion
The project accounts for most of the 200 MW of European capacity that Cerebras said in July it expected to reach by the end of 2027. That plan includes sites in France and the Nordics, and OpenAI workloads are expected to use some of the capacity.