Cloud Provider CoreWeave to Invest $2.2 Bln in Europe

FILED - 04 November 2021, Norway, Oslo: Police officers park in front of the Norwegian Parliament building in Oslo. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
FILED - 04 November 2021, Norway, Oslo: Police officers park in front of the Norwegian Parliament building in Oslo. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
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Cloud Provider CoreWeave to Invest $2.2 Bln in Europe

FILED - 04 November 2021, Norway, Oslo: Police officers park in front of the Norwegian Parliament building in Oslo. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
FILED - 04 November 2021, Norway, Oslo: Police officers park in front of the Norwegian Parliament building in Oslo. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa

Specialized cloud provider CoreWeave said on Wednesday that it plans to invest an additional $2.2 billion in Europe to meet rising demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, bringing its total investment in the region to $3.5 billion.
The Nvidia-backed company plans to build three new data centers, each in Norway, Sweden and Spain by the end of 2025, it said. The investment is in addition to CoreWeave's $1.3 billion investment in the UK, where it has two data centers, Reuters reported.
CoreWeave has benefited from businesses rapidly adopting generative AI technology. The company has access to the most advanced Nvidia chips that are in short supply, giving it an edge over hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure and Google Cloud.
Last month, CoreWeave said it was raising $7.5 billion in debt from investors led by Blackstone and Magnetar Capital to scale up its AI infrastructure to meet surging workloads. In the same month, the company was valued at $19 billion after a Series C funding round.
CoreWeave signed a series of 12-year contracts with bitcoin miner Core Scientific on Monday, which is expected to generate total cumulative revenue of more than $3.5 billion for the latter. CoreWeave made an all-cash bid to buy Core Scientific for $5.75 share on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg News.



Google Reportedly Weighs Large Data Center in Vietnam

FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
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Google Reportedly Weighs Large Data Center in Vietnam

FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

Alphabet's Google is considering building a large data center in Vietnam, a person briefed on the plans said, in what would be the first such investment by a big US technology company in the Southeast Asian nation.
Google is weighing setting up a "hyperscale" data center close to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's southern economic hub, the source said, declining to be named because the information is not public.
The investment, the size of which the source did not specify, would be a shot in the arm for Vietnam which has so far failed to attract major overseas capital in data centers due to its patchy infrastructure, with large tech companies preferring to house their centers in rival nations in the region.
According to Reuters, it was not clear how quickly Google will reach a decision on an investment but the source said internal talks are on and the data center could be ready in 2027.
A spokesperson for Google declined to comment about the data center plan.
Hyperscale centers are the largest in the industry, with power consumption usually similar to that of a big city.
A hyperscale data center with power consumption capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) could cost between $300 million and $650 million, according to estimates based on data published by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle in a report this year on data centers in Vietnam.
Google's move was motivated by the large number of its domestic and foreign cloud services clients in Vietnam and the country's expanding digital economy, the source said, noting the Southeast Asian nation was one of the fastest-growing markets for YouTube, Google's popular online video sharing platform.
Currently the top data center operators in Vietnam, based on computing space, are industrial investment firm IDC Becamex and telecommunications company VNPT, both Vietnamese state-owned enterprises, according to an internal market report by an industrial park in Vietnam seen by Reuters.
The Nikkei reported in May that Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba was considering building a data center in Vietnam. Alibaba did not reply to a request for comment.