Cerebras to operate Mikkeli’s 165MW data centre

US artificial intelligence company Cerebras will operate the data centres being built in Mikkeli, Yle reported. The facility will be constructed in stages with a total capacity of 165 megawatts, and Cerebras says the halls will cost between 1 billion and 1.7 billion euros.

Cerebras develops unusually large AI chips. According to Jussi Kangasharju, a computer science professor at the University of Helsinki, the size of the chips allows them to process more data without transferring it between different machines.

“They make very large AI chips. Because Cerebras’s chip is large, it can process more information, and the information does not have to be transferred between different machines,” Kangasharju said.

The chips are designed for demanding AI computing and cannot replace ordinary computers. Kangasharju said they were not a universal solution for the entire AI industry.

Cerebras servers will be installed in the Mikkeli data halls. The company’s customers will be able to purchase capacity for AI training and use.

Investor Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, is among Cerebras’s owners. OpenAI developed ChatGPT, one of the most widely used conversational AI systems.

OpenAI signed a 10 billion dollar agreement with Cerebras at the beginning of this year. Another major AI company, Amazon Web Services, is also among Cerebras’s customers.

Globally, Cerebras remains a small company, Kangasharju said. Nvidia, the market leader in microchips and graphics processing units, is more than 100 times larger. However, Kangasharju said Cerebras had good prospects because its large chips had suitable uses and the company could increase its market share.

First two halls planned by the end of next year

British company Compute Nordic is responsible for developing and maintaining the Mikkeli data centre. Chief executive Pyry Virrantaus said the first two data halls are scheduled to be completed by the end of next year. Together, they would consume 100 megawatts of electricity.

Construction of the first 50-megawatt data hall in Mikkeli began this summer.

Finland currently has two data centres of a similar size: Google’s facility in Hamina and Nebius’s facility in Mäntsälä. More are planned. Microsoft is building three data centres in Vihti, Kirkkonummi and Espoo.

“Growth is accelerating, but I do not believe there will be more than ten 100-megawatt data centres in five years,” Kangasharju said.

A few large US and Chinese companies dominate the AI industry, competing for market leadership while investing hundreds of billions of dollars in data centres. This has raised concerns that the AI industry has grown artificially too large and that share prices could collapse if confidence in AI weakens.

Kangasharju said data centres would still be needed even if the AI bubble burst, because the use of the conventional internet continues to increase. All data transmitted over the internet is stored in data centres, whose servers run services including online banking and streaming platforms.

“There is a growing need for data centres. Whether this development is sustainable in any way is another question,” Kangasharju said.