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Cerebras and Compute Nordic Finland Announce New 165 MW AI Data Centre in Mikkeli, Finland

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Facility backed by seven-year contracted capacity agreement and estimated โ‚ฌ1.0โ€“1.7 billion in regional investment for local development and employment

Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) today announced a new AI data centre in Mikkeli, Finland, developed in partnership with Compute Nordic Finland. The facility will scale in phases to 165 MW of contracted IT capacity to deliver high-density AI compute with construction on the initial 50 MW phase already under way.

The agreement, formalized through a series of service orders each with seven-year contract terms, gives Cerebras long-term, purpose-built infrastructure to support growing global demand for its AI compute platform, while providing the Mikkeli region a long-term industrial anchor with significant estimated revenue and sustained job opportunities.

โ€œThis partnership with Cerebras is not a speculative bet on future demand โ€” 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,โ€ said Pyry Virrantaus, CEO of Compute Nordic Finland. โ€œWe are proud to build that capacity in Mikkeli, alongside a partner network of local and national organizations who are ready to deliver the project and build the workforce it requires.โ€

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More AI Per Megawatt

Cerebras and Compute Nordic designed the Mikkeli facility for efficiency from day one to optimize power and water usage. The facility is designed to use closed-loop cooling systems that recirculate water rather than draw continuously from municipal supply, and the campus is designed to support waste-heat recovery, enabling thermal energy generated by AI compute into a resource for the surrounding community.

โ€œOur architecture is built to get more useful AI output out of every megawatt we deploy,โ€ said Andrew Feldman, CEO and co-founder, Cerebras. โ€œMikkeli lets us pair that efficiency with a data centre designed for closed-loop cooling and heat reuse from the ground up.โ€

A Long-Term Industrial Anchor for South Savo

Cerebras’ long-term commitment in Mikkeli reflects the company’s broader approach to data centre development: building long-term technical capability and high-quality, permanent jobs around advanced AI infrastructure, rather than treating a site as a temporary construction project. As demand for Cerebras’ wafer-scale AI compute continues to grow globally, Mikkeli adds a purpose-built, efficiency-first facility to the company’s infrastructure footprint, with capacity scaling from 50 MW to 80 MW to a full 165 MW as data centre capacity is delivered.

Independent analysis from Ramboll’s Finnish Data Center Market Study and Impact Assessment Report (12 September 2025) estimates that, at full 165 MW scale, the project represents an indicative investment of โ‚ฌ1.0โ€“1.7 billion for the region, supporting an estimated 80โ€“250 direct permanent jobs and โ‚ฌ0.8โ€“2.5 million per year in property tax revenue.

Unlike the construction-heavy, short-lived employment sometimes associated with large data centre projects, Cerebras and Compute Nordic are emphasizing the permanent, technical roles the Mikkeli campus will create and sustain over the life of the facility โ€” including operations, power and cooling engineering, networking, security, and facilities management โ€” alongside the near-term construction and local supply chain activity already under way.

โ€œThe clearest measure of a project like this isn’t the number of construction jobs it creates upfront; it’s what remains ten or twenty years later,โ€ Virrantaus said. โ€œWe looked at permanent employment, workforce pathways, local suppliers, and durable economic activity when building this out in Mikkeli.โ€

A Broad Partner Network

The Mikkeli project is developed in close cooperation with the City of Mikkeli and key regional stakeholders across South Savo, supported by a broad network of Finnish construction, engineering, energy, recruitment, and professional services partners.

Compute Nordic Finland is leading project development, operator responsibility, the customer interface, and overall programme governance.

Catch more CIO Insights:ย What Does โ€œJob-Readyโ€ Really Mean in IT and Cybersecurity?

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