XTX, the London-based algorithmic trading firm, has announced plans to invest over €1 billion in a major data centre complex in Kajaani, Finland. The project represents one of the most significant data infrastructure investments in the Nordic region to date.
The development, spanning 478 acres, will begin with a 15,000-square-metre facility designed to support 22.5MW of IT capacity across three data halls. Scheduled for completion in 2026, the facility will also include office space for up to 50 staff. XTX plans to construct four additional data centres on the same site in subsequent phases.
XTX currently operates its computational research from a supercomputer in Iceland and relies on over 25,000 GPUs with 650 petabytes of storage. By building its own facilities, XTX departs from industry reliance on third-party providers, instead opting for in-house infrastructure to power its machine learning models.
Kajaani was selected for its energy efficiency advantages, including Finland’s low-cost electricity, tax incentives, and naturally cold climate, which supports sustainable cooling methods. XTX has also pledged to supply surplus heat generated by its data centres to the local community at no cost.
Joshua Leahy, XTX Markets CTO, commented: “We believe the best way to future-proof our business is to invest in our own infrastructure, which we can continue to leverage over time. Having our own data centers enable us to deploy increased computing power on our terms, cost-effectively, and in a way that keeps pace with our growing business. Our need for compute has outgrown available leasing options. We are building ahead of our needs to establish a backbone for future growth of the business.”
Founded in 2015 by former Deutsche Bank trader Alex Gerko, XTX Markets uses machine learning to trade equities, currencies, fixed income, commodities, and cryptocurrencies. With a daily trading volume exceeding $250 billion across 35 countries, the firm is a leader in high-speed trading technology.
The construction of the first data centre involves Finnish companies YIT for main construction work, Granlund Oy for design services, and A-Insinöörit Rakennuttaminen OY for construction management. The project is expected to create significant employment opportunities during its development phase.
Kajaani is also home to other large-scale data infrastructure, including the Lumi supercomputer, underscoring Finland’s growing status as a global hub for data centres.
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