Data centre of the month: Pure Data Centres’ new Finland site, SJK01

When Capacity spoke with Pure Data Centres Group President, Dame Dawn Childs, at Datacloud Energy Europe earlier in the year, she described the company as moving “onwards and upwards” and “scaling at speed”.

It’s exactly this ethos that represents Pure’s new data centre site in Seinäjoki, Finland. Referred to as SJK01, the campus is currently under development as a major AI site, targeted to support more than 500 megawatts (MW) of IT capacity. Pure has 370 acres of land under development for the site and is also looking at other sites.

“The game plan is to have more than a gigawatt of capacity in that market,” Gary Wojtaszek, CEO at Pure Data Centres Group, told Capacity. “In addition to Finland, we’re looking at other Nordic locations as well because there’s plenty of land and power and it’s relatively less expensive.”

Scaling as European demand surges

The development marks Pure’s first major launch into taking advantage of the growing data centre market across Europe. Currently, AI is fuelling demand across the continent and is expected to achieve record levels in 2026.

“Europe is finally turning on, and I’m excited to be part of that,” Wojtaszek added. “The 500MW we’re developing in the region will make it one of the largest campuses across the whole of Europe.”

With access to more than 700MVA of renewable power, the campus is expected to benefit from exceptionally low energy costs and a stable grid. Its development strategy is based on repeatable 40MW AI-ready modules, built with direct liquid cooling (DLC) to support the high-density thermal demands of next-generation hardware.

For Wojtaszek, the development is all about power and speed.

“We have a great partnership with local governments; we’ve had lots of outreach and support from them,” he explained. “Everyone has also been helpful on the permitting and planning side, so our partnerships are great all around.”

Pure partners with local city governments, planning groups and local utilities across all its facilities. When it comes to SJK01, the advantage is the low cost, power and land availability, Wojtaszek explained.

“Finland is kind of like Texas in the US – lots of land, lots of power, inexpensive prices,” he said.

Turning sustainability into strategy

SJK01 is important to Pure’s strategic direction this year, given its mission to meet surging customer demands. A significant aspect of that is accessible renewable power, as Pure seeks to prioritise sustainability at the site.

Committed to decarbonising digital infrastructure, Healthier Earth has developed a biochar process to directly reduce carbon footprint, which Wojtaszek said no one else in the market has done to date.

Biochar is currently a promising carbon removal solution for the market. While the technology is ready to deploy, Healthier Earth said the fragmented, small-scale nature of current projects threatens its potential.

“This is one of the most unique things Pure does compared to any other data centre company,” Wojtaszek explained, advocating for the importance of the industry investing in such technology. “Most other data centre companies are aware of the environmental challenges and talk about being renewable, but Pure has taken it further.”

Where SJK01 is concerned, the substation for the first data hall has been constructed and is now live. Looking ahead, Wojtaszek is excited about the future of Pure’s plans to scale further.

“It’s a really interesting company, it’s the perfect size in its lifecycle,” he said. “The next couple of years are going to be really exciting; it’s always a good time to join a company when it’s in that growth stage.”

With its unique offerings like Healthier Earth and other plans to scale, Wojtaszek shared how the industry can best capitalise on the ongoing AI boom.

“What’s driving the industry now is AI growth, and you need to provide solutions in locations that help customers deploy GPU chips and anything else that takes advantage of the AI technology rollout,” he said. “If you don’t have that, you’re not being as helpful to customers as you could be. That’s what we’re focused on doing.”

This feature forms part of Capacity’s latest magazine edition for Datacloud Global Congress. To read the full edition, click HERE.

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