Microsoft is investing 2.96 billion euros in expanding its existing data centres in Sweden. The company has a presence in the country in the cities of Gävle, Sandviken and Staffanstorp. All locations are undergoing expansion.
The total investment of SEK 33.7 billion (EUR 2.96 billion) is spread over a two-year period. After that, 20,000 new GPUs should be operational to run AI workloads. Microsoft hopes to fuel AI adoption in the Nordic region with the initiative.
Multiple hardware providers
Some of the GPUs will come from Nvidia. This confirmed Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. He named the H100 GPUs, which have already been succeeded by two new generations. The new generation of Blackwell GPUs is faster at training LLMs, but market demand for H100 remains high. Elon Musk’s AI company also recently hinted that it will use H100 GPUs to develop a supercomputer. That project should be completed by 2025. With Microsoft’s now-announced investments that run until 2026, it is clear that the H100 GPUs will be around for AI projects for a long time to come. Nvidia, however, maintains a high pace of innovation as the technology continues to evolve rapidly.
Also read: Nvidia announces successor Blackwell chips, but competition tightens
Furthermore, Microsoft will still consider deploying semiconductors from AMD, and chips of its own making will also be integrated in Sweden. “You will see us diversify the chips we have more and more,” Smith further indicates.
Expanding in Europe
Microsoft is further expanding its European region. Investments in the UK, Germany and Spain were previously announced. Smith gives advance notice that more announcements will follow this fall. At AWS, we see the same movement. The company recently announced an expansion in the Italian region.