Microsoft Sweden AI (Sandviken/Gavle) data center, Sandviken, Gavleborg County

Microsoft is building again at Tuna in Sandviken, Gävleborg, Sweden, where it stopped work on its data center halls in April 2025 because the electricity they need was not coming. Halls four and five, taking Tuna from three to five, were to start after the summer of 2026.

What unblocked it was an airfield. Vattenfall's new power line had to cross Rörberg airport, which Gävle's council voted to close in September 2024; the decision was appealed three times and a flying club campaign for a referendum gathered 10,000 signatures. In October 2025 Gävle's council voted 35 to 30 against holding the referendum, and the flying club appealed. In April 2026 it became clear that the airport would close, and Microsoft's operations manager, Mattias Ersson, told Gefle Dagblad it meant the project was starting up again.

The pause hit the town. About 1,500 people work on the site at full construction, according to the municipality's business chief, Jan Fagerström, and local machinery hire firms, landlords and restaurants lost trade. The Social Democrat councillor Peter Kärnström called it terribly sad for all the subcontractors and jobs. The five halls are expected to bring about 300 permanent jobs.

Tuna is one of three expansion sites, with Ersbo and Stackbo in Gävle municipality, in an investment of more than 30 billion kronor presented with the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, in 2024. At Stackbo, outside Gävle, residents said at a meeting in January 2021 that they felt thoroughly misled, having heard nothing new since the previous autumn.

Paul Lind and Anna-Karin Löfstrand, who live nearest a planned transformer station, had been short of water at times during the preparatory work, and others objected that Microsoft paid for water and sewage connections for 16 households along the new mains while theirs, at 130,000 to 160,000 kronor, were not covered. The area draws data centers because the big lines carrying hydropower from Norrland meet around Gävle and Sandviken.

The power itself depends on Vattenfall Eldistribution, which the Energy Markets Inspectorate has licensed to build lines from Stackbo in Gävle to Tuna on condition that the airport closes. Vattenfall's project leader, Annelie Thomsson, told Gefle Dagblad in October 2025 that it planned to start building the following autumn and expected everything to be finished by mid-2028, while warning of many uncertainties.