atNorth: Scaling Sustainable Data Centres Across the Nordics

The Nordic data centre market is preparing itself for extreme growth over the next five years, as businesses across Europe accelerate their AI investments. Investment in the region is growing on account of its cooler climate, cheaper renewable energy and greater availability in comparison to constrained FLAP-D markets.

At the forefront of this innovation sits atNorth, a Nordic data centre operator that has placed sustainability at the forefront of its growth strategy. Leading this charge is Anna Kristín Pálsdóttir, the company’s Chief Development Officer. Since joining the company just over a year ago, Anna has been responsible for the operator’s data centre footprint expansion across the Nordic countries. 

“I joined the company tasked with its footprint expansion – site selection, design, technology, innovation, and delivery in line with customer expectations,” she explains. “We are developing new data centres and making sure they meet atNorth’s standards as well as industry and client requirements.”

Presenting a clear expansion strategy 

“We have extensive expansion plans”, says Anna. The business is expanding two of its three operational facilities in Iceland, where it established its first operations in 2009. In addition to its four other operational sites across Finland and Sweden, it is about to open its first Danish site, with a second under development, as well as additional facilities planned in Finland and Sweden. “We have also secured additional land in Sweden that is earmarked for a future megasite and have many sites under evaluation in Norway too”.

Anna’s engineering background influences her structured approach to scaling operations. She emphasises the importance of learning from mistakes quickly and applying those lessons systematically across future projects, saying “we only make a mistake once and learn from it – it is essential for innovation”.

The rapid pace of expansion requires careful planning and modular thinking. atNorth’s leadership team constantly evaluates which processes can be streamlined and scaled effectively. This approach ensures that hard-won operational knowledge translates into improved efficiency across all new developments – whilst also making sure that new facilities are delivering genuine value.

“In everything that I do, especially when we are doing something new, I try to always put myself in the seat of the customer to see if we are going in the right direction,” Anna explains. 

The Nordic region offers unique advantages for data centre operations, but renewable power is the most desirable for atNorth.

“Sustainability is not a tick box item for atNorth. It’s not something we are trying to fit into our business model or trying to see how we can do better – it is the foundation of what we do,” Anna says. “Our responsible approach starts at the planning and site selection phase. It means that we do not start a new project unless we have an opportunity to harness heat reuse. This extends throughout the site development right through to thinking about how we are going to fit into the communities in which we operate.”

She adds: “This is our business – being responsible, constantly improving our footprint and working on basically being net carbon neutral into the future.”

Driving Nordic expansion with renewable energy

atNorth’s Nordic focus stems primarily from the region’s renewable energy abundance and the company’s environmental strategy also encompasses participation in circular economy initiatives. 

“This involves collaborating with local partners on ideas about how to reuse waste created from our operations and make sure we think about how it meets a local need to fit into the environment we’re working in,” Anna says. “It matters a lot and is also why I decided to join this industry.”

One of the company’s facilities near a lake exemplifies this approach, as atNorth participated in projects ensuring local residents could continue to use the water in the most optimal way, alongside the company’s operations. Such community-focused initiatives demonstrate how the operator balances commercial objectives with environmental stewardship.

“For me, these types of projects where we work together with our neighbours, they matter a lot. It also shows respect for the environment, which I would hope all companies have at the heart of what they’re doing,” Anna says.

Iceland is a critical market for atNorth, given that is where the company is headquartered. In 2009, it started its first operations and has grown significantly to support increased demand from its customers. By prioritising trust and the closeness of the Nordic community, Anna says atNorth has been able to scale successfully. 

“We are a responsible business with sustainability at the forefront of our company ethos – this is what matters. It matters a lot that people come in, they get to know us, we are constantly talking about how we can expand in the most responsible way,” she explains. “It is good because the Nordic region is a community of sorts, so we do work on our reputation and people can check how we have been operating in the last 16 years – including how we have been growing our footprint in Iceland for a long time and now in Finland.”

Finland represents a crucial growth market where atNorth has established significant operations – but also Denmark, where – at the time of writing – its new DEN01 facility is about to become operational. 

“If you look at our footprint in Denmark and Finland, we strive to go where we have sites that have been industrial prior to us arriving there,” Anna explains. “Having brownfield sites where we are replacing other industries with our new data centres in order to protect greenbelt land is something that we carefully consider during site selection”.

Sweden is also adding another dimension to atNorth’s expansion efforts with a recently secured land intended for additional mega site. This facility will support larger-scale operations designed to serve major enterprise and hyperscale customers requiring substantial capacity and advanced infrastructure.

In Norway, the company is currently evaluating how best to develop a recent power allocation.

The power and potential of modular design

atNorth’s technical approach emphasises modular and scalable design principles. Often, modular data centres are quick to construct and are most cost effective and energy efficient. 

“Our data blueprint design is simple and prefabricated so it’s easy to upgrade, it’s easy to change,” explains Anna. So, when new technology comes in that can benefit the workloads of the customer, we can accommodate it. We have to be prepared with a good foundation so that we can meet changing needs rapidly and be at the forefront of applying innovation that allows more workloads or different types of workloads into our data centres.”

Likewise, the company is also prioritising a hybrid approach to cooling, with Anna saying: “It means that, as our customers are growing, we can change with them, and we can make sure that we are there when they need something more from us as a company and service provider.”

This flexibility is greatly appreciated within the data centre industry currently, as AI and HPC applications continue to expand. Anna suggests that learning from other industries that have also experienced rapid growth cycles has helped atNorth in its approach to managing technology-based challenges.

“We can apply so many of the lessons learned from other industries throughout the years,” she explains. “That, I think, is absolutely key for our industry so that we continue to embrace innovation and implement it across our operations.”

Building for decades, not years

atNorth’s approach to innovation focuses primarily on balancing the need for sustainability rather than simply improving its technical capabilities. This, Anna says, is to future-proof its data centres and avoid expensive retrofits and ensure facilities remain competitive throughout their operational lives.

“When you are laying the foundation, you think about how you’re going to grow,” she explains. “We are marrying innovation and sustainability rather than balancing it. What that means is that the most interesting innovation in our industry at this time is about what we can do to contribute further to a circular economy and be more sustainable in what we do.”

atNorth’s long-term perspective distinguishes it from operators focused on immediate returns. Despite only having 16 years of reputation, Anna says the company is completely dedicated to ensuring it is there in the future and its site selection decisions reflect this thinking.

“When we are doing site selection or breaking ground on a new site, we don’t do it for business success for this year or next,” Anna emphasises. “We are doing it so that we can be there for the decades to come.”

Looking ahead, atNorth is focused on demonstrating a consistent performance over an extended period of time. By developing its efforts across the Nordics, the company is growing its footprint to embark on larger-scale operations across the region – including its desire to be active with metro and mega sites.

“We have a variety of sites suitable for different workloads. Smaller metropolitan operations as well as larger-scale campuses across the Nordics. We have excellent options that are going to help us to grow the footprint,” Anna says. 

“We will be actively developing two mega sites in 2026. One is in Denmark and one in Finland, with others in the pipeline. These will be very exciting because we have higher capacity in these regions that attract larger customers.”

The company remains eager to engage with the communities in which it operates, emphasising a long-term sustained partnership. 

“We really like to participate in meetings where everyone that lives close to our operations comes and gets to know our company and what we do,” Anna says. “This is also important from an environmental perspective.”

Currently, atNorth is operating five to six active expansion projects simultaneously to actively grow its footprint. Anna confirms that such a rapid pace of development requires careful resource management and operational coordination.

“Excellent cooperation with both municipalities and all the people living close to us is needed so we can continue to grow,” she says. “We will continue this focus in 2026.”