The company also announced a comprehensive skilling commitment for an estimated 200,000 Danes by 2024.
The data centre region is set to provide its Danish customers access to the Microsoft Cloud, powered by 100% renewable energy.
The announcements are part of #DigitalLeapDenmark, a commitment lead to the country’s green digital future, led by the tech giants.
“This is a proud day for Microsoft in Denmark,” said Brad Smith, President, Microsoft. “Building a hyper-scale data centre in Denmark means we’ll store Danish data in Denmark, make computing more accessible at even faster speeds, secure data with our world-class security, protect data with Danish privacy laws, and do more to provide to the people of Denmark our best digital skills training.
“This investment reflects our deep appreciation of Denmark’s green and digital leadership globally and our commitment to its future.”
The company said this plan represents the next step in Microsoft’s longstanding commitment to help the country accelerate public sector digitization and fuel digital innovation to support growth of Danish enterprises.
Currently, Microsoft employs more than a thousand people in the country and has recently invested in a quantum computing research lab in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark.
“The Government’s ambition is for Denmark to emerge from COVID-19 even greener, stronger and more socially just,” said Nicolai Wammen, Danish Minister of Finance.
“We have initiated a green recovery of the Danish economy and launched a new strategy for green public procurement, contributing towards our ambitious climate targets.
“Today, data centres and IT solutions represent a considerable part of carbon emissions from public procurement in Denmark, so we see a big potential to reduce our climate footprint.
“I’m pleased to see that businesses are embracing the government’s climate ambitions and taking responsibility for creating a green, digital future. This underlines Denmark’s leading position in both the green and digital transition.”
