Microsoft's investment in Finland will include at least $250 million for a datacenter

Along with the 32,000 employees that Microsoft will acquire with the Nokia deal, Microsoft plans to invest no less than $250 million in the building and equipping of a new datacenter in Finland.

This would be the second major international datacenter in the country, joining Google’s investment in a repurposed wood pulp plant that became their Finnish datacenter.

Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services powers the Microsoft cloud and the addition of a datacenter in Finland will, along with the existing datacenter facility in Ireland, improve services for customers in Europe, decrease latency and expand service capabilities. Microsoft’s modular datacenter architecture is also extremely well suited for the climate it will find in Finland, with the standardized free-air cooling modules already known for delivering exceptionally low PUE numbers even in less frigid climes.

A major facility in Finland will also give Microsoft the opportunity to add additional sub-regions for the European Azure deployment.

This $250 million investment is in addition to the money being spent to expand the Dublin facility and will add to the growing portfolio of datacenter expansion that Microsoft has developed as they have also announced plans to build new datacenter facilities in the Asia-Pacific region where a new facility in Singapore is expected to be online by 2014.

There have also been plans announced to build new datacenters in Australia, which will include support for new Azure sub-regions and a major region for all of Australia.