Renewable Energy: Sweden's Data Centre Growth

The majority of Sweden's energy comes from carbon free sources like hydro, nuclear, wind and solar according to the International Energy Agency.

Now an immensely popular data centre location in the Nordic region, Sweden is currently undergoing a period of rapid growth, according to Research and Markets.

The country's data centre market is anticipated to soar from US$2bn in 2024 to US$3.8bn by 2030 with a CAGR of 11.29%.

Sweden is seeing a shift from on-premise facilities to cloud and colocation data centres on account of rapid digital transformation across Europe.

Key industry figures like Equinix, Digital Realty and AWS continue to drive growth in Stockholm, which Research and Markets says is a central hub in the country.

Access to significant renewable and low carbon energy could make Sweden attractive for data centre operators looking to reduce their environmental impact. 

A growing investment opportunity 

The Swedish data centre market sees significant participation from local and global operators, including atNorth, AWS, Digital Realty and EcoDatacentre.

Research and Markets says these companies have worked to strengthen their operations to support increasing demand driven by digital transformation initiatives across the country. 

Major global cloud service providers—Meta, AWS, Oracle and Microsoft—are also progressing towards closing regional IT skills gaps through innovation-driven education while leveraging sustainable energy resources to reduce environmental footprints.

Sweden's natural cool climate provides offers operators the opportunity to enact free cooling and heat reuse initiatives, further reducing environmental impact.

Tech giants are expanding their presence in the country, including Google's plans for three availability zones in Stockholm.

In March 2025, Google launched its new cloud region outside Stockholm, named Europe-north2, marking its 42nd global and 13th European region.

The launch reflects a major investment in Sweden's digital infrastructure, with key customers including IKEA, Nordnet and Tradera.

The company has also committed to sustainability in the region through long-term wind energy agreements totalling more than 700 MW.

The impact of increasing digitalisation

The reliance on digital infrastructure across Europe is growing, which is attracting cloud service providers from the US. 

The Swedish government's proactive stance looks to support this trajectory with measures like tax incentives and simplified permit processes for data centres. 

This has created a favourable environment for the digital economy, with Research and Markets saying some of the government incentives include the establishment of free zones with incentives, including tax benefits enhancing the attractiveness of investments in the Sweden data centre market.

Also eager to capitalise on increasing digital transformation, telecom operators like Telia and Ericsson are the major telecom operators that have launched commercial 5G services across the country. 

Building a shift in the data centre market

As of December 2024, the Swedish data centre market recorded a power capacity of approximately 160.8 MW, with an additional 150 MW in development.

Once all these data centres become operational within the next 1-2 years, the report says that total power capacity is expected to increase substantially.

Notably across Sweden, there has been a significant shift from on-premises data centres towards cloud and colocation data centres in the country’s data centre market.

This has been accelerated dramatically in recent years on account of increasing digitalisation, with Swedish enterprises depending on managed service offerings rather than standalone colocation services. 

Stockholm also witnessed a significant addition of data centre capacity, driven by the increasing demand for cloud, colocation and digital services.