Looking Back on 2025: A Year of Acceleration, Impact, and Purpose at atNorth

Eyjólfur Magnús Kristinsson

As 2025 comes to an end, I find myself looking back on the year at atNorth with a deep sense of pride, both in what we have achieved and in how we have achieved it. This has been one of the most transformative years in atNorth’s journey – defined by rapid acceleration. The pace of change in our industry is extraordinary. Yet, every time I walk through one of our sites or meet with a customer, I am reminded that our vision remains simple: to deliver more compute for a better world in a way that genuinely benefits people, businesses, and the communities around us.

Sustainability, Responsibility, and Leading by Example

At atNorth, we recognize that sustainability alone is no longer enough. Developing and operating a sustainable and regenerative business is crucial. We began this year by building on our blueprint for the future data center, designed to power digital growth while supporting our society and the environment.

As part of this commitment to responsible business practices, we became a signatory to the UN Global Compact to further align our operations with the UNGC’s principles on human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. This was also reflected in our 2024 Sustainability Report, which reported measurable progress in energy efficiency, water stewardship, emissions reduction, and our broader ESG strategy, grounded in the planetary boundaries framework to guide our growth.

Across the Nordics, our sustainability-first approach continued to shape major projects, from our heat reuse contract with Vestforbrænding, where excess heat will be used to serve Danish households, to our work with Kesko to reuse heat at our newly launched FIN02 site. Our long-term partnership with Nokia to support its cloud services reinforced the role we can play in building resilient, low-carbon digital ecosystems. Similarly, hosting 6G AI Sweden’s sovereign AI cloud at SWE01, powered by NVIDIA’s latest H200 and Blackwell GPU technologies, showcased how national-scale innovation can be powered responsibly.

In Iceland, expanding our capacity for Crusoe by an additional 24 MW at ICE02 marked another step toward enabling sustainable, AI-ready compute anchored in renewable energy and advanced liquid cooling. Options Technology needed a secure, sustainable, AI-ready solution and chose our ICE02 campus for its high-density infrastructure to support its future growth strategy. Across all markets, we have seen growing interest from organizations seeking to deploy AI workloads in a genuinely sustainable, secure, and future-proofed way.

Recognizing Excellence Across the Organization

This year, atNorth was recognized across multiple industry stages. Earlier this month, we won the Environmental Impact Award from Data Center Dynamics for the responsible expansion of our ICE03 site in Akureryi – a perfect way to end the year. We have also been honored to receive the Information Technology Award from Ský for our contribution to Iceland’s digital infrastructure, and we celebrated a series of wins, including Data Centre Design Project of the Year, Sustainable Data Center Project of the Year, Colocation Project of the Year, and Brand Campaign of the Year.

I was especially pleased to see our colleagues receive individual industry accolades: Fredrik Jansson was shortlisted for Tech Capital’s EMEA Digital Infrastructure Leader, while Anna Kristín Pálsdóttir was named one of Data Centre Magazine’s Top 100 Women in Data Centres. And Camilla O’Leary was recognized in the iM100 Awards as a top 100 leader whose contributions are shaping the future of the industry.

Another standout milestone was achieving an ISO 9001 certification, which speaks volumes to the hard work, discipline, and continuous improvement mindset of our teams. This, alongside our other accredited ISO certifications, demonstrates our commitment to delivering high-quality services aligned with internationally recognized industry standards and frameworks.

Our People: The Heart of Our Momentum

If there is one theme that defines 2025 for me, it is the strength of our people. We expanded our leadership team significantly this year, welcoming Janne Sigurdsson as Chief Sustainability & Compliance Officer and adding new directors across several departments and multiple markets. These roles will be critical as we scale to meet the increasing demand for high-density, AI-ready infrastructure.

Our investment in people extends beyond senior leadership. In November, more than 200 residents attended our recruitment event in Kouvola ahead of the opening of our new mega-site, FIN04, which will begin operations in mid-2026. This will create significant long-term employment opportunities with the potential to create an estimated 200–300 roles as the site scales, strengthening both local economies and the Nordic tech ecosystem.

One of the absolute highlights of the year was our company retreat in Helsinki, where colleagues from across Europe came together to collaborate, learn, and celebrate our culture – including a memorable team-building session at the historic Olympic Stadium. Moments like this remind us why bringing people together matters: to connect, share knowledge, align goals, and strengthen the culture that drives everything we do.

Celebrating Our Customers, Partners and Community

Our customers and partners continue to be central to our success. This year, we told several of their stories – from our work powering sustainable innovation with Nokia in Finland to our continued expansion with Opera in Iceland to support their AI and super-computing workloads with a trusted renewable energy and high-density infrastructure.

In Iceland, we have seen the transformative local impact of ICE03 in Akureyri, which is helping to grow the region’s tech network and support local industry. We are also proud to be working with the Town of Akureyri to reuse and repurpose waste heat from ICE03 to support community greenhouses, strengthening local food production and circular energy use. This initiative shows what is possible when municipalities, institutions and companies work together to integrate infrastructure thoughtfully into the local community, promoting sustainability and creating long-term societal and environmental value.

We also continued to invest in the broader digital infrastructure sector. By joining Infrastructure Masons’ IMWomen program, we are helping to nurture the next generation of female leaders in our industry. This is close to home for atNorth and our belief that lasting impact comes from both innovation and the people who drive it.

To this end, we have upheld our commitment to charity work across the Nordics, including our support for breast cancer through organizations in each country. We also led several regional initiatives such as supporting search and rescue teams, reforesting initiatives, and local festivals as well as funding children’s swimming lessons, sporting events, and recreational areas.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As demand for AI, HPC, and sustainable digital infrastructure continues to grow at extraordinary pace, atNorth is ready. The groundwork we’ve laid – our technology, people, sustainability commitments, and community partnerships coupled with the blueprint we have set in motion for the future of the data center positions us to lead with clarity and purpose.

None of this progress would be possible without the dedication of our team and the trust of our customers and partners. We appreciate your continued support, collaboration, and shared vision. Together, we will continue to build the future of sustainable compute: one that benefits businesses, communities, and the planet.