Nokia-led consortium eyes Oulu for EU-backed AI gigafactory — but company hasn't confirmed the location
A Nokia-led business consortium is pursuing a multi-billion-euro artificial intelligence data centre under the European Commission’s InvestAI programme, with the northern Finnish city of Oulu reportedly the preferred site. Nokia confirms the project but not its location, according to Finnish public broadcaster Yle.
Text by Martti Asikainen, 13.7.2026 | Photo by Nokia
A consortium led by the telecoms equipment maker Nokia is in discussions to build a large-scale AI computing facility, known as an AI “gigafactory,” in Finland, Nokia has confirmed.
The company has not named a location, but Finnish MP Ville Skinnari says the project has been presented to him as being destined for Oulu, a city roughly 600km north of Helsinki where Nokia already runs a major manufacturing and research campus.
The Finnish newspaper Kaleva first reported the Oulu link, which said Nokia’s Senior Vice President Pasi Toivanen would confirm only that the consortium had held talks about building an AI facility in Finland.
A €5 billion project, according to an MP
Skinnari, a member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party and Finland’s former minister for foreign trade, told Yle he attended a presentation over the winter in which Nokia’s project was explicitly linked to Oulu. He described it not as a conventional data centre but as a Nokia-led undertaking worth up to €5 billion.
“The Oulu-based technology network is still there. It hasn’t gone anywhere,” Skinnari said, arguing that the city combines advanced technological expertise with good access to energy.
Nokia has not corroborated the €5 billion figure or the Oulu location, and no timeline for a final decision has been made public.
The project sits within the European Commission’s InvestAI initiative, which aims to mobilise €200 billion in investment in high-performance computing and AI, partly to reduce Europe’s reliance on American technology providers. The scheme is designed to support the creation of up to five AI gigafactories across the EU.
Confirmation during July?
The Finnish government has formally backed Nokia’s bid, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, which said 76 applicants submitted expressions of interest across the EU as a whole.
Separately, Yle reported that within the responses gathered for the initiative, a gigafactory has been proposed for six member states and 60 different locations — though it is not clear whether this is a subset of the same 76 applications or a distinct count.
Under preliminary plans set out by the Finnish government, private partners would cover around 65% of the investment. Finland already hosts LUMI, one of Europe’s early AI-focused supercomputing facilities, in the northern city of Kajaani, which officials have suggested could work alongside any new gigafactory.
Toivanen said Nokia had been asked, roughly a year ago, by Finland’s prime minister to examine the concept from a Finnish perspective as “a significant and responsible European company.”
He said he expects the European Commission to progress the matter further during July, adding that Nokia has been considering how the concept could work best for Finland and how to bring private and public actors together.
One bid among many
The Commission is expected to decide which of the applicants will proceed, and where any gigafactories will be sited, later this year. Nokia has emphasised that the Commission, not the company, will determine the specifications any gigafactory would need to meet.
The Oulu site would not be starting from nothing: Nokia opened a new 55,000 square-metre research and manufacturing campus there in September 2025, employing around 3,000 people, focused on 5G and 6G radio networks.
Even so, the project remains at an early and unconfirmed stage. Nokia is competing for a place among as few as five gigafactories across the entire EU, and the company has declined to confirm either the location or the investment figure being discussed in relation to Oulu. Whether the city ultimately hosts the facility depends on a Commission decision that has not yet been made.
