Bitzero Locks 110MW Norway AI Lease as Nordic Power Demand Race Accelerates
Bitzero Holdings signed a binding letter of intent on May 5 (2026-05-05) with OneQode Networks covering the full 110 megawatts of its Namsskogan, Norway data centre, committing both parties to a 15-year GPU-focused AI workload lease worth an implied $2.6 billion over the contract term.5
The deal sets a concrete revenue ceiling for the site. At full utilization, Bitzero management said Namsskogan could generate between $176 million and $178 million in annual revenue, with a shareholder analysis estimating annual net operating income of around $151 million based on an 85% margin profile tied to the lease structure. The next energization milestone is the 70MW tranche scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026 (Q4 2026), tied to a defined 325MW expansion corridor that follows existing grid capacity at the site.5
That Norway deal landed alongside engineering due diligence completed earlier this month on Bitzero's Kokemäki, Finland campus, clearing up to 520 megawatts with a stated ambition of 1 gigawatt at full ramp. An initial 80MW phase is targeted for the first half of 2027 (H1 2027), with 400MW to 800MW expected to follow in later stages.5
The scale matters for Nordic power markets. Finland's Data Center Association estimated in May 2026 that national data centre power demand would more than triple to 1.2 gigawatts by 2030 — before accounting for projects that were still advancing at the time of that forecast, Montel reported on Wednesday (2026-05-20).2
That demand trajectory is pulling forward wind investment. Industry participants told Montel in the week of 2026-05-18 that rising power consumption from data centres and electric boilers made further Finnish onshore wind investment appear inevitable.1
The dynamic reflects a broader pattern across AI infrastructure. Applied Digital locked in a 250MW deal with CoreWeave worth roughly $7 billion over 15 years, then expanded to 400MW at approximately $11 billion in total contracted revenue — a transaction that repriced the company's equity story. In the current AI hosting market, each 100 megawatts of contracted GPU-ready capacity is translating into roughly $2 to $3 billion in enterprise value, according to analysis published by OilPrice.com.4
Nordic geography provides structural advantages for this demand. Norway's Namsskogan benefits from proximity to existing grid capacity — the 325MW expansion corridor is specifically tied to that infrastructure. Finland offers low ambient temperatures that reduce cooling costs, plus a power grid increasingly built around wind and hydro rather than gas generation.1
The longer-term power supply question in Finland points toward nuclear. Steady Energy, a Finnish small modular reactor developer, is targeting heat production from 50MW reactors at a lifetime cost of around EUR 40/MWh, which it described as cost-competitive with other sources, Montel reported. The company's initial focus is Sweden, but the cost case for SMR baseload in data centre-dense markets is the same argument being made across the Nordic region.3
What remains unresolved is the gap between current grid capacity and the demand volumes being contracted. Bitzero's 325MW Norway expansion corridor follows existing infrastructure, but the 1GW Finland ambition involves a campus at Kokemäki that would absorb roughly 83% of the entire projected 2030 national data centre demand in a single site, based on the Finnish Data Center Association's 1.2GW forecast. Finland's grid build-out — dominated by wind additions — would need to keep pace with a build schedule that begins delivering at 80MW in H1 2027 and scales to 400MW to 800MW in subsequent stages.5,2
The Q4 2026 Namsskogan energization deadline is the first hard test of whether the infrastructure timeline holds.5