Google Commits €13 Billion to Finland; Trump Is Not Happy

On September 9 an electricity contract was signed in Helsinki.

The next evening a question was asked in Washington: why is Google building in Finland?

The answer was inside the contract signed two days earlier.

What Was Signed in Finland

Google said on September 9 that it will spend €13 billion in Finland across 2027 and 2028. The money goes to four locations: Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala. The company called it its largest single investment in Europe.

The second half of the announcement got less attention.

Google signed a 22-year power purchase agreement with the Finnish utility Fortum. It covers up to half the output of the Loviisa nuclear plant, starting in 2028 with a smaller volume and reaching 50% between 2030 and 2049.

Loviisa runs two Soviet-designed VVER-440 reactors commissioned in 1977 and 1980. Combined capacity is 1,014 MW and annual output is roughly 8.2 TWh — more than a tenth of Finland's electricity. The plant employs 580 people.

Fortum's stock exchange release put it plainly: without the life-extension program the plant "could not continue operations beyond 2030."

Fortum shares closed at €24.74 on Nasdaq Helsinki that day, up 15.82%. The following day JPMorgan upgraded the stock and raised its price target to €24.30 from €17.80.

The Question From the White House

In a Fox News interview aired a day after the deal, Donald Trump talked about data centers. To him they are "the oil of the next 50 years."

Then he named Google:

"I notice Google is building one now in Europe. I'm not happy about that. They're building one in Finland, and I'm saying, 'Why are they building one in Finland?'"

Google was not really the subject of the interview. Trump was describing the growing local backlash against data centers in the US, and said the opposition might be a public-relations campaign run out of China.

Trump read the investment as a construction decision.

Google had made it as an electricity decision.

How a 22-Year Promise Becomes €1 Billion

The original operating licenses for Loviisa's two reactors expire at the end of 2027 and 2030. Carrying the plant to 2050 requires a refurbishment program of roughly €1 billion spread across 2023 to 2050.

Most of that program had not been approved. By Fortum's own account, about 80% of the projects and €700 million of the spending were still awaiting investment decisions.

The reason is not technical. Extending a plant's life means spending money today against revenue collected over twenty years. Nordic power prices swing hour to hour with wind and demand, and nobody underwrites a twenty-year average.

A contract with a named buyer removes that uncertainty.

Fortum said the agreement should lift group comparable return on net assets by about 1.4 percentage points over time. The value of an investment depends less on its size than on how predictable the cash flow behind it is.

A Statement or an Instrument

What Trump expressed is a preference. "I'm not happy" is not a rule.

The question is whether an instrument exists that would make it binding.

The US regime screening outbound investment took effect at the start of 2025 and was written into law through the fiscal 2026 defense bill. Its scope is narrow: only "countries of concern" — China, Hong Kong and Macau — and only semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum. Finland is not on that list.

Export controls do not reach this either. Those rules govern handing technology abroad, not an American company putting up a building in an allied country.

What Was Happening in America at the Same Time

A week before the interview, the same argument played out at home.

On September 2, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte said she opposes the data center under consideration in the town of Bow and would propose a statewide moratorium. Her stated reason was electricity prices.

Ayotte's proposal is not an instrument yet either. If the moratorium passes with the budget, it takes effect no earlier than July 2027.

By MultiState's count, lawmakers in more than thirty states filed over three hundred data center bills in 2026.

The Part That Does Not Fit

None of this adds up to "Google left America."

Alphabet's stated 2026 capital budget is $195–205 billion. The €13 billion going to Finland over two years is roughly $15 billion — less than a tenth of a single year's spending. The overwhelming majority stays in the US.

The Hamina site is not a new decision either; it is the expansion of a campus that has been running for about fifteen years.

The chart is framing only; no single announcement sets a price.

Still, the marginal decision carries information. This round, Google went where it could lock in electricity for twenty-two years.

This article draws on Fortum's September 9 stock exchange release, Google's Finland announcement the same day, press accounts of Trump's Fox News interview, New Hampshire local coverage from September 2, and law firm summaries of the US outbound investment regime. Fortum's move that day was reported in a range from 10% to 16% across outlets; the Helsinki close is used here.