Microsoft said on Monday it would invest 33.7 billion kroner ($3.2 billion) over two years in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Sweden, the largest investment in the country.
The group will train 250,000 people by 2027 to increase knowledge and competence in AI and also increase the capacity of its three data centers in the country, the group said.
“Microsoft’s largest investment in our history in Sweden” would enable the Scandinavian country to “build a leading AI data center infrastructure,” company president and vice chairman Brad Smith said at a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
“A big part of the reason we’re able to do this is due to Sweden’s forward-looking energy policy, its abundant access to green energy, whether it’s carbon-free energy or renewable energy,” Smith said.
The US group has announced similar AI investments in other countries in recent months, including France, where it pledged to invest four billion euros ($4.3 billion), Japan, where it announced a $2.9 billion AI push announced, and in Indonesia and Malaysia.
In Sweden, Microsoft will supply more than 20,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) needed for training AI models and will increase capacity at its data centers in Sandviken, Gavle and Staffanstorp.
“AI is a catalyst for many things,” says Kristersson. “It will also help accelerate development in other areas. This huge investment in Sweden has the potential to pave the way for other investments.”
Data centers, which process and store enormous amounts of data, require large amounts of electricity and water, accounting for about two percent of global electricity consumption, according to a study by the HEC Montreal business school.
In 2020, Microsoft said it aimed to become “carbon negative” by 2030, but emissions rose 30 percent by 2023, the data showed.
– ‘Increase in Russian deepfakes’ –
Asked about the risks and abuses associated with artificial intelligence, Smith said Microsoft was monitoring AI-generated deepfakes “very closely.”
“Our biggest concern, frankly, is about the Russian government,” he said. “We have seen an increase in Russian activity using deepfakes.”
“This is the kind of danger for the future that we need to address and protect against, and that will take more work.”
He said this would require governments to introduce new legislation, as well as new opportunities in the technology sector.
“Fundamentally, it requires using AI to defend against abuses that others promote with AI,” Smith said.
AI technology, which is expected to transform almost every aspect of human life in the coming years, has taken a quantum leap forward with the 2022 launch of the generative tool ChatGPT, which can create texts, images and audio files on demand.
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