- Who doesn’t like trees? Google, apparently
- Google’s Finnish adventure goes completely nuts
- Hyperscaler paves road to AI dominance through the homes of fluffy little flying squirrels
HELSINKI — Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Nobody knows.
The question of which Google destroyed first — the forests or the squirrels’ homes — is considerably easier to answer.
First came the destruction of protected flying-squirrel habitat in 2018–2019. Then came the wholesale slaughter of Finnish forests in 2026.
Whether any squirrels actually died remains unconfirmed. The trees, however, are unquestionably dead.
Google’s problems in Finland keep getting worse.
In 2018–2019, its subsidiary Tuike Finland destroyed approximately 1.3 hectares of protected flying-squirrel habitat while expanding its Hamina data center, cutting down nesting trees and clearing feeding areas and the wooded corridors the animals used to move between them. The company had no permission to destroy the habitat. When Finnish authorities examined the damage in early 2020, Google’s subsidiary received a warning and stopped clearance work in the area. [Yle’s investigation]
This year, things have taken a significant turn for the worse.
Google has cleared approximately 530 hectares of forest at Muhos and Kajaani for proposed data centers before completing environmental impact assessments. That is roughly 1,300 acres. Google itself confirmed clearance of 330 hectares at Muhos and just under 200 at Kajaani. [Yle’s clearance figures]
Finnish regulators ordered a halt to environmentally disruptive work at both sites, while police began an inquiry into suspected illegal logging at Muhos. [Yle’s report on the police inquiry]
And here is the irony.
Google has been working to convince communities that its enormous data-center expansion will be good for them. In September it announced €31 million in community partnerships over four years, covering education, research and local economic initiatives in Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala. The announcement accompanied a much larger €13 billion investment plan for Finnish digital infrastructure. [Google’s investment announcement]
Instead, it has managed to make itself the center of a spectacular environmental backlash.
Which is not particularly surprising, given that Finns are famously attached to two things: rules and trees.
Probably squirrels, too, although nobody has asked them recently.
It is the latest mess created by Big Tech companies as they seek to pave over large portions of the planet to support their probabilistic chatbot fortresses.
And Finland is hardly an isolated case.
In Oregon, Amazon’s data centers have drawn criticism over water and electricity demands. The state’s governor has paused certain requests for public land to support new data centers while officials assess the costs to local infrastructure and natural resources. [Oregon governor’s announcement]
In Ireland, the collision between hyperscale expansion and national infrastructure limits is measurable: data centers accounted for 22% of the country’s electricity demand in 2024, according to the energy regulator. [Ireland’s energy regulator]
And in Chile, opposition to Google’s proposed Cerrillos data center centered on groundwater use. A court ordered further environmental assessment. [Chilean reporting]
These are not unfortunate side effects of an otherwise benign business model. They are the business model.
Hyperscale companies privatize the benefits, socialize the costs and describe the resulting damage as innovation. They consume land, water, electricity and public patience at industrial scale, and expect local populations to buy into a press-release promise of jobs, investment and a brighter digital future, before exiting stage left without paying any taxes.
Google’s conduct in Finland is therefore more than a local planning dispute. It is a glimpse of the entitlement that travels hand in hand with hyperscale culture. (“But I WANT to cut down the forest, Daddy!” Stamps millennial foot.)
When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
Even by the standards of the world’s most ethically elastic technology companies, Google’s behavior in Finland is abhorrent.
Stephen M. Saunders MBE is a communications analyst and USPTO-registered inventor examining how digital infrastructure — 5G, cloud and AI — is reshaping industry, power and society, as well as underpinning the emerging, ubiquitous global digital economy. As anchor of FNTV and a longtime industry insider, he focuses less on growth narratives and more on execution, risk and how hyperscale technology is distorting markets, governance and society at scale.
Opinion pieces from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff do not represent the opinions of Fierce Network.