Microsoft Staffanstorp data center, Staffanstorp, Skåne County

Microsoft's Staffanstorp data center, near Malmö in Skåne County, Sweden, is one of three sites in the company's Sweden Central cloud region, which opened in late 2021 alongside facilities in Gävle and Sandviken. Microsoft said in September 2021 that the Staffanstorp data center was up and running, would open to customers in November 2021, and employed more than 60 people.

The site became a local fight over backup power. According to Sydsvenskan, the building was described in its original permit as a warehouse, not a data center, and only after it was finished did Microsoft apply to the Skåne County Administrative Board for a permit for about nine diesel units, DCD reported. Residents and local groups fought the plans and hoped to have existing permits revoked. In August 2022 Microsoft withdrew its application to add backup power for a planned 70MW of extra capacity, saying it needed a larger data center in the region than Staffanstorp could hold and would look for a new site in southern Sweden. "We can already state that even if we expand in Staffanstorp to the maximum capacity, it will not cover the needs we have in the region," Microsoft Sweden's communications head Andreas Wingren told Sydsvenskan, adding that local opposition was not part of the decision.

Microsoft said it would keep operating and expanding in Staffanstorp using only the backup units already in place. It then equipped the building's interior from late 2022 to spring 2023, and said it did not intend to use more backup power capacity than was already installed and permitted. Microsoft says its Swedish backup generators run on HVO fuel from Preem and that the region is powered by 24/7 carbon-free energy matched with Vattenfall.

In June 2024 Microsoft announced it would spend 33.7 billion Swedish crowns, or $3.2 billion, over two years to expand its Swedish data centers in Gävle, Sandviken and Staffanstorp, including 20,000 new GPUs for AI.

Permits for backup power at the Staffanstorp site come from the Skåne County Administrative Board, which handles permits for environmentally hazardous operations.