TikTok's Norwegian Data Center to be Built by Green Mountain

TikTok, a social media site controlled by the Chinese government, will utilize a data center in Norway with a capacity of up to 150MW. Green Mountain will construct and manage the OSL2-Hamar plant, consisting of five 30MW-capacity buildings. According to the company, this will make it Norway's biggest data center campus. TikTok has secured an initial contract for three 90MW-capable buildings by November 2023, possibly increasing capacity to 150MW by November 2025. The facility will be powered exclusively by renewable energy, principally hydropower. The waste heat from the data center will be provided to the local region for unspecified purposes.

The data center, along with two proposed Dublin, Ireland facilities, is part of TikTok's "Project Clover" attempt to store European data within the EU. Theo Bertram, vice president of European government relations and public policy at TikTok, explained that Project Clover aims to create a safe enclave for European TikTok user data. This project will implement a number of new steps to reinforce current protections and better match their overall approach to data management with the European data sovereignty concept.

This year, European TikTok user data will be kept locally at the first Dublin data center. Once operational, the three data centers would represent a total yearly investment of $1.26 billion, according to the company. TikTok is independently developing the Oracle cloud-based 'Project Texas' plan to store US data domestically as it faces rising scrutiny from American legislators.