Summary
- EcoDataCenter has agreed to buy 52 hectares from Smedjebacken Municipality for its third Dalarna campus.
- The site has an immediate 150MW opportunity, with the company identifying further expansion potential.
- Construction is expected after building and environmental permits are finalised, with the first data centre expected to be operational in 2029.
EcoDataCenter has signed a land agreement covering 52 hectares in Smedjebacken for its third data centre campus in Sweden’s Dalarna region, giving the developer an immediate 150MW opportunity with potential to expand further.
The agreement with Smedjebacken Municipality moves forward a relationship that began with a letter of intent in 2019. EcoDataCenter expects construction to begin once building and environmental permits have been finalised, with permitting expected to progress during 2027.
The company has not presented the 150MW figure as completed capacity. It describes the site as having an immediate 150MW opportunity, making permitting, detailed design and infrastructure delivery the next steps before that power envelope can become operational compute capacity.
At full build-out, EcoDataCenter expects the campus to support between 125 and 150 permanent jobs, alongside several hundred roles during construction. Smedjebacken would become its third establishment in Dalarna after existing sites in Falun and Borlänge.
The land agreement adds another sizeable campus proposition to a Nordic market where availability of low-carbon electricity remains an important attraction, but where developers still have to turn nominal energy availability into firm connections, permitted buildings and workable construction programmes.
A 52-hectare site provides room for substantial phased development, yet the practical value of that land depends on how quickly power, planning and environmental approvals can be assembled. EcoDataCenter’s timetable therefore places the next phase around the less visible parts of data centre delivery: permit conditions, grid engineering, site preparation and the sequence in which capacity can be brought forward.
The 150MW figure is also large enough to make phasing important. Hyperscale campuses rarely become fully operational in a single step, and the relationship between contracted customer demand and the timing of electrical and mechanical infrastructure determines how much capital has to be committed before revenue-generating capacity is available.
EcoDataCenter has built its wider proposition around high-performance infrastructure and lower environmental impact. In Dalarna, that strategy increasingly intersects with a more basic capacity question as high-density AI systems push power requirements upwards and change cooling design at the building level.
The company already markets liquid-cooled infrastructure at its Swedish sites, illustrating how the next generation of campuses is being designed around workloads that place different demands on electrical distribution and heat rejection than conventional enterprise colocation.
For Smedjebacken Municipality, the project would also translate a large electrical and land allocation into a relatively concentrated industrial development. Data centres do not create employment in proportion to their power demand in the same way as some traditional industrial plants, which puts greater weight on construction activity, local procurement, tax contribution and associated infrastructure when municipalities assess the economic case.
EcoDataCenter says the region already hosts a concentration of hyperscale operators. Additional capacity in Dalarna therefore adds to an established cluster rather than creating an isolated market, with the potential advantages of an experienced contractor base, power-sector familiarity and a local workforce accustomed to large digital-infrastructure projects.
The agreement does not remove the delivery risks. Environmental approval, construction permitting and the infrastructure required to serve 150MW remain material milestones. The project will become more tangible as those permissions are secured and EcoDataCenter sets out the first construction phase, rather than simply the eventual campus envelope.
If the permitting timetable holds, EcoDataCenter expects the first data centre to be operational in 2029, extending its Dalarna footprint into a third municipality and adding another large-scale Swedish campus to a Nordic development market increasingly shaped by the ability to convert power availability into buildable capacity.
