Data centres in the EU now consume as much electricity each year as 80% of Finland’s total demand — yet most of the profits flow straight back out, into the pockets of foreign tech giants. In Aalto University’s Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition, doctoral researcher Kaarlo Liukkonen from DIESL asks: is Europe building digital infrastructure for itself, or just hosting someone else’s?
Offering an illustrative map of data centre electricity capacity in Europe, DIESL is part of this year’s Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition at Aalto University (1 September – 30 October 2026).
The issue is especially pressing right now: earlier this month, Google announced a €13 billion investment in Finland, its largest single investment in Europe to date, expanding data centres in Kajaani, Muhos, Vaala, and Hamina and securing up to half the output of the Loviisa nuclear plant to power them.
The exhibition piece visualises the distribution of European and non-European data centre capacity in Europe. More than two-thirds of the capacity is non-European operators, mainly US companies. Coordinated by DIESL doctoral researcher Kaarlo Liukkonen, the showpiece invites visitors to ask whether Europe is on track to become an active player in the digital economy or simply the electricity supplier for infrastructure whose value is captured elsewhere. To further kick-off the exhibition, DIESL members Otto Kässi and Kaarlo Liukkonen offered a guided tour to Aalto’s partner corporations. As Aalto University’s biggest exhibition, Designs for a Cooler Planet welcomes visitors until the end of October.