 Hello, everyone. Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts. We're recovering the latest stories, trends, and innovations from all corners of the digital infrastructure industry, from leaders in global connectivity, real estate, and the networks within. I'm Candice Sipos with JSA, and I'm joined here by Kim Ganelius, Managing Director of Verne, Finland, leading Green Data Center Solutions provider for high-intensity computing, and they have locations in Iceland, Finland, and the UK. Welcome, Kim. Thank you. A pleasure to be here. Absolutely. Pleasure to have you. So we're very excited to talk about the news today. So first of all, I feel like we should start off by just congratulating you on all of the recent success over at Verne. So you all have experienced such incredible growth over the past few years, and the news that we have to talk about today is just continuing on that growth path. So what can you tell us about your company's recent acquisition by Ardian and the opportunities that are presented by that? Well, thanks. Yeah, it's a great development overall. So as you know, the data center business is driven by capital. So capital is something that really fuels growth, and we're super happy to have a partner in Ardian because they have lots of capital and they really see the opportunity in the same way that we do. So there's a lot of stuff happening in AI, driving a lot of demand, and we see that there's an opportunity in the Nordics with us placed already in Iceland and Finland and having a very good spot in the market. It's an opportunity to really grow and catch a lot of that opportunity. So Ardian has 150 billion assets under management and significant investments already in the digital infrastructure space. So I think they have expertise here that we can benefit from in the whole value chain. So they also have investments and understanding in, for instance, district heating and heat reuse and that kind of stuff and AI, and we can exploit that and work together with them. So there's several things coming together there. So extremely excited about this. Excellent, sounds like a perfect partnership. So we talked about how much growth Fern has been having recently. So can you talk a little bit about what this acquisition means for your current and future plans for growth? How it's going to benefit your existing customers and any companies that might be seeking data center solutions in your area? Sure, yeah, so as I mentioned, AI is what's coming in a big way and the support from Ardian really allows us to expand in a way that will support our customers that are looking for big chunks of capacity. And what we've done already is focus on high intensity compute. So high density deployments and we'll continue to do that. So it will give our customers a path to growth and even looking forward with significantly higher densities and moving into liquid cooling, for instance, which we've already deployed, but it will give us an opportunity to scale that and do that in a sustainable way because ever since the start, we've been focused on the sustainability bit. And optimizing in that area is also an opportunity together with Ardian and their, for instance, their heat reuse experience. So it'll also give us an opportunity to expand into other countries, specifically looking at the Nordic. So Norway, Sweden would be next, but we're also eyeing other countries in Northern Europe. Oh, very nice, excellent. And more and more expansion in the near future than it sounds like. So you said the magic word, you said sustainability, which is of course, such a key component of everything that Vern has going on and always has been. So what are some of the key opportunities we can expect to see on that front, on the sustainability front, as a result of this acquisition, particularly in terms of sustainability and your environmental impact? Sure. So firstly, the capital side allows us to raise, shall we say green capital. So it also allows us to get a lower cost of capital because working together over the companies and backed by Ardian, it puts us in a better position with the banks. So Ardian has an investment portfolio with investments also in the renewable energy sector. So we look forward to working with them there and learn and maybe also look at what we can do together. As well as focusing on the technologies, optimizing liquid cooling and learning from the experts in the fields of heat reuse, optimized heat pumps and that kind of stuff. So we are compliant with the EU sort of finance disclosure regulation on the sustainable product. So we're really positioning ourselves to be a leader in the space. And having already done a lot of efforts like implementing the heat reuse to the district heating grid in Helsinki as well as some green hydrogen efforts in Iceland and always having used renewable energy, it'll give us an opportunity to build on that knowledge and also exploit from the benefits of having larger deployments. Excellent, very exciting. So I feel like you've already kind of touched on this next question a little bit, but is there anything else you'd like to say about the long-term goals for Vern, the kind of looking ahead under the new ownership? Yeah, so in the, shall we say, the era of AI, it's hard to think about the long-term goals, but when you're in the data center space, of course you have to do that. So we really see that there's an inflection point coming up and the demand is growing so fast that we have to be able to innovate also to bring capacity fast to the customers and be more flexible in that space. So I think that's an area where we're in a much better position to kind of put capital also on the innovation, shall we say, and development part and especially speeding up deliveries and so on. Yeah, absolutely. So circling back to the sustainability question, we can't let you go without talking a little bit about greener data, which of course is launching in just a couple of very short weeks, April 22nd on Earth Day, and you are a contributing author for volume two. So we're so excited to welcome you back. You've been involved in greener data from the very beginning. So can you tell us just a little bit about your chapter, what people can look forward to reading about if they search out Verne's chapter in greener data volume two? Sure. First of all, thanks for the opportunity to participate in volume two. It's an honor. So I will be talking about AI as an exponential technology and what it means for the data center with all of the requirements on doing things faster and how we can still keep it sustainable while all of these demands for more density specifically and for more kinds of technologies such as liquid cooling and liquid cooling combined with air cooled as well as several different types of liquid cooling and how we can address the demand in the AI space where the density comes from the connectivity requirements where you have to have all of the capacity close together. So how do you live in an environment where the requirements are changing and getting more demanding and provide a good sustainable service to the customers? Excellent. I am looking very much forward to the launch of greener data volume two. We're so excited that Verne is a part of it again this time around and everybody check out greenerdata.net for more information there and make sure to check it out on Earth Day, April 22nd. Thank you so much, Kim, for joining us for this very special JSA TV interview all about the very exciting acquisition news going on at Verne. And to our viewers, stay curious and stay connected and happy networking.