Waste Heat From Microsoft Servers to Warm Residents in Southern Finland:
Microsoft has announced a major new data center in Finland. As welcome as that news alone might be, with the expected 11,000 new jobs, the project will also provide district heating for a large swathe of southern Finland. Finnish broadcaster and news provider YLE highlights that Microsoft's collaboration with energy company Fortum will also create the "world's largest waste heat recovery project for data centers."
Finland's biggest energy company, the majority-state-owned Fortum, has been looking for a data center partner for the last four years. [...]
On the scale of the investment in this new data center, LYE reports that it is "one of the biggest single ICT investments in Finnish history." Microsoft reckons that the new infrastructure, its upkeep and services will sustain 11,000 new local jobs. Moreover, such a large project usually has a positive effect on local businesses. At the very least 11,000 people, many with high skilled roles and a commensurate salary, will be very happy to have nearby food outlets, goods and services.
It is estimated that Microsoft and its ecosystem in Finland will also stimulate the local economy, generating more than 17.2 billion Euros over the next four years. Lastly, considering the core server business activity of Microsoft in southern Finland, locals will benefit from the fastest loading and latency times when using Microsoft's popular cloud services (and perhaps great PC and Xbox cloud gaming too).
(Score: 2, Troll) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @04:02PM (3 children)
Mainly this is not about heat or efficiency but proximity to the Russian border and the fiber cables connecting to the EU.
Secondarily it's about ensuring that managers force their staff to assume the position for Bill's minions and continue to gut the country's defense preparedness by ensuring that M$ products are deployed absolutely everywhere in place of stuff that actually works. That way Russia, the US, China, and anyone else who wants to can wander in and out of public utilities, governmental institutions, businesses, and personal computers without effort. With Outlook [cnn.com], Sharepoint, Windoze Server or other products there can be no secrets. One would suppose it has to be that way because the geopolitical proximity to Russia means that moving away from Windoze would raise the bar for espionage and control ever so slightly and be considered an actionable "provocation" by the Kremlin. Likewise it also ensures that M$, which seems to be dictating US tech policy now, can keep an eye on competition and nip new activities in the bud should any business startups, established multinationals, or political entities start to indicate signs of technological independence or reveal ideas which M$ can steal or crush.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @04:49PM (2 children)
Finland is a small country which relies on foreign investment to keep itself competitive with other larger member nations of the European Union. The EU also expects its member nations to take carbon targets seriously - if the figures in the article are correct they can kill 2 birds with one stone.
Random fact: Linus is from Finland.
As to whether it's wise to partner with a US multinational, a nation under 6 million people is a small player in the overall scheme of things. Who has the expertise domestically to compete with the big players in the global knowledge economy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:43PM (1 child)
[...] if the figures in the article are correct they can kill 2 birds with one stone.
Three actually. The third is that by maintaining an M$ presence, any country which wants to either keep an eye on the activities and negotiations in Finland or simply just shut them down with ease can do so. The bar for that gets raised significantly if the microsofters and their products are ejected from the country.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @06:11PM
Hmm. I must be hitting a nerve. It's not even been that long since Wannacry [wired.com]. M$ has a history of selling bug doors to nations, which is one of several reasons why they are so glacially slow at getting working patches out for even widely publicized vulnerabilities. By allowing any M$ presence inside the country, they are greatly decreasing readiness. Those products did not just show up on their own. Teams of microsofters [wiktionary.org] worked hard over many years to replace key personnel up and down the nation all the while doing a rip-and-replace of quality technology with the m$ products that allow almost effortless espionage and control, all the while burdening the regular workers with tools that keep them frazzled by not being suited for task.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @04:28PM (1 child)
Micro$oft can recover the waste that is WIndows 11 and provide a real OS instead of an advertising platform.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:01PM
They did, it's called CBL-Mariner.
Soylent even had a story on it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 22 2022, @04:56PM (5 children)
Microsoft brings real value to some community somewhere.
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:40PM (2 children)
Microsoft brings real value to some community somewhere.
Not really. The tradeoff is a larger M$ presence politically, in the data centers, and elsewhere within Finland. So it's a net loss for the country at a time the world, especially Europe needs to be heading the other direction. Windows runs hotter (more waste heat from more electricity) and has more vulnerabilities and malware (weakening national defense) than the technologies they aim to replace. In volleyball, M$ would be the "setter" here in preparation for a second party to come in and spike the positioned ball. M$ and the trade press it owns are just greenwashing the attack and getting a lot of free coverage that way.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @07:26PM (1 child)
Are you seriously discounting the fastest cloud load times and latencies??
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @07:41PM
Yes. I am discounting it. You're not talking about normal "cloud". It'll be their Azure cloud imitation instead. Sure it might be the "fastest" Azure base but at the end of the day that will still be subject to all the limitations and shortcomings found with Azure.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:46PM (1 child)
If true then we are all Finnished.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2022, @06:44AM
Lithuania believe it! You'd Estonia me stone cold.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:35PM (7 children)
ditch windows ... freeze to death?
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 22 2022, @05:53PM (1 child)
Both Google and Yandex [helsinkismart.fi] have been running data centers in the region for many years. Capturing and using the waste heat is not a new thing. It's just that the trade press is all over anything M$ does and pretends that it is leading the way, rather than catching up after a decade or so of trailing the pack. Even a casual web search on the topic reveals that many other centers are already in place and have been doing this for years.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @07:29PM
But this will generate more than $17.2 BILLION Euros! They can't be making this up because of the significant digits they gave. If it was a number they pulled out of Clippy's backside, they would have said something like "almost $20 billion," but $17.2B shows that this number has got to be pretty solid!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @07:40PM (2 children)
i seed torrents to heat my place... you guys can keep outsourcing your shit :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2022, @03:22AM (1 child)
Now that you bring it up, a server is 100% efficient in converting electrical power into heat, same efficiency as any of those plug in electrical heaters sold via TV ads and department stores.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2022, @04:17AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_furnace [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2022, @04:10AM (1 child)
This does not smell at all like a trap. Not one bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2022, @06:42AM
Russian gas, Microsoft space heaters. Everything will be fine.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2022, @07:19PM
Two for one deal as it also generates electricity
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Haiyang-begins-commercial-scale-district-heat-supp [world-nuclear-news.org]
Have the Germans restarted the nuclear plant closed a few months ago? no
Has Germany decided to extend the planned closure dates of other nuclear plants in light of the Ukraine invasion? NO
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-ministries-say-cannot-recommend-extending-nuclear-plants-lifetime-2022-03-08/ [reuters.com]