Data Center Investments in Iceland Double Year-on-Year
The data center industry accounted for 3.6% of Iceland’s export revenues in the first half of this year.
The three major data center companies in Iceland—atNorth, Borealis Data Center, and Verne—estimate that their investments will total 56.7 billion ISK this year. This represents nearly a doubling from last year, when investments amounted to just under 29 billion ISK.
A new analysis by the Federation of Icelandic Industries (SI) estimates that investments in the sector will account for approximately 6% of total business sector investments this year.
Significant Increase in Export Revenues
Export revenues from data centers and related activities reached 35.2 billion ISK in the first half of this year, compared to 10.2 billion ISK during the same period last year, according to data from Statistics Iceland. This marks a year-on-year growth of 245%.
“The increase in export earnings for the economy as a whole amounted to 20 billion ISK during this period; without the growth in exports from data centers and related activities, a contraction would have been recorded instead. The sector accounted for 3.6% of Iceland’s export earnings in the first half of this year,” SI writes.
According to SI’s analysis, the sector’s export earnings for this year are projected to reach approximately 72 billion ISK—an increase of 74% compared to last year.
4.5 Indirect Jobs for Every Direct Job
As of mid-year, approximately 280 people were directly employed by the three data centers. SI estimates that their operations also support around 1,260 indirect jobs—for instance, within IT companies, contracting firms, and service providers responsible for maintenance, technical support, and the management of the data center facilities.
“In total, this amounts to approximately 1,540 direct and indirect jobs during the operational phase. This equates to about 4.5 indirect jobs for every direct job,” according to SI. This ratio is said to be comparable to the findings of a recent PwC study on data centers in the United States, where each direct job is estimated to support approximately 4.5 additional jobs during the operational phase.
The total number of direct and indirect jobs has more than tripled since 2022. Most of these are well-paid, high-productivity positions. SI notes that these figures do not include temporary jobs related to the construction of the data centers.
Source: Viðskiptablaðið (in Icelandic)