TikTok to build a second billion-euro data centre in Finland

TikTok plans to invest 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) to build a second data centre in Finland in less than a year as it moves data storage for European users to the continent, company officials said on Wednesday.



The announcement comes as TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance in January avoided a U.S. ban over data protection concerns and as European nations ratchet up pressure on social media companies to protect children from their addictive algorithms.



TikTok said it was making a new 1 billion euro investment in a data centre with an initial capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) and a total potential capacity of 128 MW in Lahti, located in southern Finland.



The investment is part of the company's "12 billion (euro) European data sovereignty initiative delivering industry-leading protections for the data of over 200 million European users," it told Reuters.