Swedish company EcoDataCenter (EDC) recently announced a successful financing of nearly $478 million to cope with the growing demand for artificial intelligence computing. The funding comes primarily from a group of undisclosed institutional investors and will be used to develop more environmentally friendly data center technologies and build these green buildings.
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Just two days after the news of the financing was released, CoreWeave, one of EDC's main clients, submitted an IPO application in the United States. EDC has raised approximately 910 million euros in equity financing so far. Although its parent company Areim has not disclosed the company's valuation, it has confirmed that it is not considering listing EDC separately.
EcoDataCenter is committed to building more sustainable data centers, especially the joint hosting space provided to customers, allowing customers to carry their own servers and related devices. Research by the International Energy Agency shows that the electricity demand in large data centers is extremely large, usually exceeding 100 megawatts, and the annual electricity consumption is equivalent to the demand for about 350,000 to 400,000 electric vehicles. Data centers account for 1% of global electricity consumption.
Against this backdrop, EDC not only plays an important role in meeting the growing demand for computing power, but also strives to achieve this goal in an environmentally friendly way. "We are the first company in the world to build data centers using interlaced laminated wood," said EDC CEO Peter Michelson. Today, even Microsoft is emulating this approach. In addition, EDC uses renewable energy to power buildings and continues to research more efficient cooling and operational materials and methods.
EDC’s customers include DeepL and some “hyperscale” companies, which build their own data centers, but also rent space from third parties such as EDC. EDC’s collaboration with CoreWeave is better known, and they are working together to build the first Hewell cluster in the town of Fallon, Sweden to enhance computing power in Europe.
The scale of this EDC financing reflects the importance of data centers, especially joint hosting centers, in the current AI boom. Globally, investment in data center infrastructure is increasing, especially technology-related real estate infrastructure.
Key points:
EcoDataCenter received US$478 million in financing and is committed to the development and construction of green data centers.
The company has raised a total of 910 million euros and is confirmed that it does not consider a separate listing.
EDC works with CoreWeave to promote the development of computing power in Europe.