A group of prominent Estonian entrepreneurs is investing almost €200mn to expand the country's largest data centre, aiming to position the facility as a regional hub for artificial intelligence computing and international clients, ERR.ee, Estonia’s national broadcaster, reported on July 30.

Investors argue Estonia has lagged behind other countries in developing large-scale data centre capacity despite the rapid expansion of AI investment worldwide.

The investment comes as the European Union steps up efforts to build sovereign AI infrastructure. On July 30, the European Commission launched a call for proposals to establish seven AI gigafactories across Europe, backed by up to €10bn in EU and national funding and expected to mobilise almost €20bn in private investment. The facilities are intended to expand Europe's AI computing capacity and provide startups, SMEs, industry, researchers and public institutions with access to advanced infrastructure for training and deploying next-generation AI models.

The shareholders behind Greenergy Data Centers, located in Huuru near Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, include well-known businessmen Kristjan Rahu, Juri Kao, Enn Kunila, Markus Villig and Urvo Mannama. Around €70mn has already been invested, while total funding is expected to reach just under €200mn by the end of this year.

The expansion will significantly increase the site's IT capacity, with most of the investment directed towards upgrading the facility's internal infrastructure rather than constructing new buildings.

"More than €70 million has already been invested in this project. Broadly speaking, the total investment will come to just under €200 million by the end of the year," said Martin Rungi, head of the key accounts segment at Greenergy Data Centre, ERR.ee reported.

According to the company, the additional capacity is being designed specifically to support AI workloads, which require more advanced computing infrastructure than conventional data centre operations.

Until now, Greenergy Data Centres has primarily served domestic customers. Following the expansion, the company intends to target international clients seeking high-performance AI computing capacity, strengthening Estonia's position in the rapidly growing European data centre market, ERR.ee reported.