Datacenters are great for Sweden but don't expect jobs!

I read in today's morning paper, Svenska Dagbladet, about the efforts made by my fellow countrymen up in the very North of Sweden (http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/it/facebook-i-norrland_6788607.svd) to convince North American companies to locate their datacentres to Luleå where Facebook are now establishing a big datacentre.

I think that having big datacentres provide many advantages. It sends an important signal and it can then attact other types of investments.

But the datacentre itself will never be a big job creator. Expect a handful of jobs after the datacentre is built and fully populated. Modern datacentres are not the cure for unemployment and I find that policymakers often miss that point.

Then again - let's treat datacentres as traditional industry taxwise. Why should it be a much lower tax on the electricity for building cars or ships than running datacentres? Our friends in Finland already treats datacentres the same way taxwise which is a huge differentiator and I want Sweden to match the Finnish offer.

Sweden has a lot to offer for people that wants to build a datacenter - we have stability in all aspects and easy access to electricity.

 

Regards, Per