🇪🇪 Estonian, 26 October 2026, data center
Google cuts down 250,000 trees in Finland without permission to build data center
Google has cleared a large area of land in northern Finland to build a data center, sparking controversy over environmental concerns.
The area, which was once home to around a quarter of a million trees, has been cleared to make way for the data center, which is part of Google’s €13 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project.
The project has been criticized by environmental groups, who say that the data center will have a negative impact on the local ecosystem and that the trees were cleared without proper environmental assessments.
The Finnish government has been supportive of the project, but the controversy has sparked a national debate over the role of Finland in hosting data centers and the impact on the environment.