EcoDataCenter, a Swedish company specializing in the development of eco-friendly data centers catering to major compute providers for their AI traffic, has secured approximately half a billion dollars — precisely $478 million (€450 million) — in anticipation of growing demand.

This equity funding, provided by a group of unnamed institutional investors, will be utilized to further develop innovative technologies for more environmentally friendly data centers and to construct these facilities.

This announcement comes just two days after one of EDC’s major clients, the AI computing giant CoreWeave, filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States.

To date, EDC has raised a total of €910 million ($966 million) in equity. Areim, the holding company that owns EDC, declined to disclose the company’s valuation. However, it confirmed that spinning off EDC is not a current consideration.

“We are focused on scaling EcoDataCenter and delivering long-term value, supported by the strong backing of our investors,” stated Robert Björk, an investment manager for Areim and a board member of EcoDataCenter. “While we continuously evaluate strategic opportunities for the company, including potential future financing options, pursuing an IPO is not an active priority at this stage.”

EcoDataCenter’s primary focus has been on constructing data centers, specifically colocation spaces where customers can bring in their servers and related hardware, with an emphasis on sustainability. This effort is timely, given research by the International Energy Agency highlighting the significant power consumption of large data centers.

According to the IEA, these data centers have power demands of 100 MW or more, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of around 350,000 to 400,000 electric cars. Furthermore, data centers collectively account for 1% of global electricity consumption.

In this context, EDC is notable not only for meeting the increasing demand for compute capacity but also for its efforts to do so in an environmentally friendly manner, an approach that is now influencing others.

“We were the first company in the world to start building with cross-laminated timber,” said Peter Michelson, EDC’s CEO, in an interview. “Now, Microsoft is following our lead.” EDC also utilizes renewable energy to power its buildings and continues to develop new approaches and materials for more efficient cooling and operations.

EcoDataCenter’s clientele includes DeepL and the so-called “hyperscalers,” companies that build their own data centers but also use third-party facilities like EDC for load balancing.

While EDC has customers outside of the tech sector, such as BMW, it is perhaps best known for its partnership with CoreWeave. EDC is also the prominent hosting provider for a project in collaboration with CoreWeave and Nvidia to build the first Blackwell cluster in Europe, located in the Swedish town of Falun, aimed at increasing compute capacity in Europe.

The size of EDC’s fundraise underscores the value of data centers, particularly colocation centers that help offset significant capital expenditures for customers, in the current surge of interest in AI.

This is a global trend, with notable initiatives such as the U.S. announcement in January of Stargate, a $500 billion project to build mega AI data centers, supported by OpenAI, SoftBank, and others.

“There is a significant amount of infrastructure capital flowing into the data center space, given its evolution into a tech-oriented real estate sector,” said Michelson.

This shift towards tech-oriented real estate could provide insight into why the current administration, and particularly President Trump, with his background in real estate, are keen on their own large data center initiative.