| Summary: | Restructuring development is a constant process. In Finland restructuring has been extremely significant in the forest and ICT sectors in the recent years. In the forest industry restructuring has happened also in the other Nordic countries and other northern regions. After financial crisis, the international competition has become tougher which has forced companies to reorganize and relocate their functions to address fiercer competition. Due to this development many of the old industrial sites are now empty or with high vacancy rates in Nordic countries. This thesis was concentrating especially on the ways to harness old industrial sites (brownfields) into data center use and to map the potential of data center investments in Nordic countries. Thesis introduces the concept of restructuring and explains how brownfield environments are born. In addition, study introduces the concept of data centers and describes the conditions needed for those facilities. This study analyzes also the current data center market and estimates how the market will develop in the near future. There have been high hopes toward data center investments in the Nordic countries. Nordic countries have many characteristics that have been considered beneficial for the data centers (e.g. chilly climate, high political stability, reliable energy grid etc.). The potential of data centers has been identified extensively and they have been promoted by various ways (i.e. giving tax incentives, putting efforts on marketing and conducting fiber optic network improvements). This survey consisted of both literature review and semi-structured interviews (thematic interviews). Total of 20 people were interviewed for this study. These people were representing different interest groups (e.g. data center operators, municipal officers and development companies). Interviewees came from Finland, Sweden and Iceland. Survey was conducted with the qualitative research methodology. Old industrial sites (brownfields) can be harnessed for the data center use. ...
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