Olga Startseva on Arctic Data Centres: Cold Alone Does Not Make a Project Sustainable
European protests and American elections have shown that data centres in the North need not only cheap energy and low temperatures but also a transparent balance of water, land, heat, and the interests of local residents
In November 2026, mass protests against the construction of large multi-purpose data centres took place in more than a dozen European countries, coordinated by the Stop Dirty Data Centres coalition. Participants demanded a moratorium on new large data centres until clear rules appear on energy, water, land, housing, cost of living, and the participation of local communities. According to many analysts, this same issue became one of the important reasons for the defeat of Donald Trump’s party in the US midterm elections held on 3 November 2026. PORA expert Olga Startseva, a member of the Council for the Promotion of the Circular Economy and Ecology of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chair of the Regional Public Organization «Ural Environmental Expertise,» explains what conclusions the Arctic should draw.
The Arctic offers a physical advantage for locating computing infrastructure: low temperatures reduce cooling costs, and spent underground workings could theoretically be used as sites. However, for any site – whether mines or sites along the Northern Sea Route – its geological stability, hydrological regime, and absence of risks to permafrost must be confirmed in advance, that is, a full-scale project study must be carried out.
The Russian Arctic already has operating facilities of this kind. In Murmansk, a pilot Rostelecom data centre with a capacity of about 0.25 MW (140 sq. m, around 20 racks, Tier II+) has been operating since 2022 – it is more of a demonstration site than an industrial data centre. In Pevek, Chukotka, construction of an Arctic data centre with an IT load of 10 MW began in 2026; it will be powered directly from the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov. But even this facility under construction is not a giant compared with European ones.
In Norway, the company T1 Energy received permission to repurpose part of the Giga Arctic complex in Mo i Rana as a 50 MW data centre, with launch in 2027 and expansion potential. The operator atNorth is developing sites in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark: the declared portfolio is about 800 MW of operating and planned capacity, including a site in Norway with an initial phase of 120 MW and potential of up to 350 MW. Meta owns a data centre in Luleå, Sweden, and Google uses seawater for cooling in Hamina, Finland.
If such projects are considered in the Arctic, including proposals for mines and capacity for the Northern Sea Route, they are permissible only under three conditions:
- The project must demonstrate an energy balance – it must show the source covering the load and the absence of shifting costs onto local consumers. The Pevek case with power from a floating nuclear power plant is technically instructive, but each such linkage requires a separate assessment of capacity, safety, and cost. Small nuclear power plants are not a universal solution but one option with its own limitations.
- An expert assessment of the site must be carried out before land allocation. For underground workings, this means assessing stability, aquifers, and permafrost regime; for sites along the Northern Sea Route, it means assessing impacts on animal migration and water protection zones.
- Heat recovery for heating or greenhouses is technologically possible, but in remote settlements it is often unprofitable because of distances and low consumer density. A calculation is needed: who pays for the heat pipeline, who maintains it, and what the tariff is. If the calculation does not add up, it is more honest to admit it than to promise heat for residents.
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