The nine-year-old start-up has raised more than $2.5bn backed by VCs including Access Ventures, AJI Capital and APL Ventures.
Artificial intelligence semiconductor start-up Groq is establishing its first European data centre in Helsinki, Finland to meet the region’s growing hunger for AI.
The start-up offers AI inference capabilities – the critical tech that underpins today’s generative AI boom. The company, known for its low latency AI chips, was founded in 2016 by former Google AI chip engineer Jonathan Ross.
Start-ups such as Groq and its competitors including Ampere are growing in the AI chip sector dominated by the likes of Nvidia.
The company’s entrance in Europe is in collaboration with Equinix, a digital infrastructure company with a strong presence in Ireland. The Finnish data centre follows another data centre the two companies built together in Dallas, US.
13.5pc of EU-based enterprises with 10 or more employees used AI in 2024 – up from 8pc the year before. While, in the same year, more than 41pc of large enterprises used AI.
Many companies, especially larger ones, are making a conscious shift by utilising AI, with government policies also recognising the importance of using the tech to improve returns and grow.
The new European footprint brings AI inference capacity closer to users across Europe, Groq said, which is expected to offer lower latency, faster response times at scale and stronger data governance to its clients.
The company’s global network, spread across the US, Canada and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, serves more than 20m tokens per second, the company added.
The nine-year-old start-up has raised more than $2.5bn backed by VCs including Access Ventures, AJI Capital and APL Ventures. According to reports, it is valued at $2.8bn.
“As demand for AI inference continues at an ever-increasing pace, we know that those building fast need more – more capacity, more efficiency and with a cost that scales,” said Ross, who is also the CEO of the company.
Regina Donato Dahlström, the managing director for the Nordics at Equinix, said that the Nordics is a “great place” to host AI infrastructure.
“With its sustainable energy policies, free cooling and reliable power grid, Finland is a standout choice for hosting this new capacity.”
According to the International Energy Agency, data centres, both AI-driven and non AI-driven, could use 80pc more energy in 2026 than in 2022.
In addition, electricity consumption in AI-driven data centres is expected to rise by 90 TWh by 2026 – or around 4pc of the EU’s current electricity consumption.
The EU states that AI-focused data centres tend to cluster in geographical locations and contribute to pressure on local grids and could involve trade-offs with climate goals, land use and energy affordability.
Meanwhile, pressure on Ireland’s grid is already on the rise, with data centres using up 22pc of the country’s electricity in 2024.
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