Alphabet-owned Google (GOOGL.O) will invest a further 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) into the expansion of its data centre campus in Finland to drive its artificial intelligence (AI) business growth in Europe, it said in a statement on Monday.

In recent years, many data centres have been located in the Nordic countries because of the region’s cooler climate, tax breaks and abundant availability of renewable power.

Finland’s Nordic neighbours Sweden and Norway have recently grown increasingly critical of hosting them, with some industry experts arguing the Nordic countries should use their renewable power for products such as green steel that could leave higher surplus value in the countries.

But Finland’s wind power capacity has increased so rapidly in recent years, by 75% to 5,677 megawatts in 2022 alone, that on windy days prices have plummeted to negative, industry statistics showed.

Therefore there is still renewable capacity available for data centres such as Google’s, which acquires wind power in Finland under long term contracts.

Analysts believe data centres’ power consumption is set to massively increase due to the rapid growth in AI usage, which Google, too, cited for one of the reasons behind its investment decision, alongside its Hamina data centre in Finland already operating with 97% carbon-free energy.

“Heat coming out of our Finnish data center will be re-routed to the district heating network in nearby Hamina, covering local households, schools and public service buildings,” Google said in the statement. It added that it aimed to achieve net zero emissions across all of its operations and value chain by 2030.

In addition to its Finnish investment, the search and cloud giant announced last month it would build new data centres in the Netherlands and Belgium.

A fascinating new study has detailed how scientists recreated a “brain” computer using salt and water.

The brain is the most complex organ in the human body, with experts recently discovering that it is even more powerful than first thought.

Now, physicists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have come together with fellow experts from Sogang University in South Korea to successfully create an artificial synapse.

While attempting to improve the way brain-like computers work, experts have looked to the human brain to help with the development.

They reasoned that, if the human brains use water and dissolved salt particles, it could be possible that brain-like computers might be able to, rather than the conventional solid material

The results were published in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and revealed that for the first time, they were able to create a tiny system measuring 150 by 200 micrometres that relied on salt and water to process information.

What they created mimicked a synapse – a key component of the human brain that is responsible for transmitting nervous signals.

PhD candidate at the Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Mathematical Institute of Utrecht University, and the lead author of the study, Tim Kamsma, said: “While artificial synapses capable of processing complex information already exist based on solid materials, we now show for the first time that this feat can also be accomplished using water and salt.”

He explained: “We are effectively replicating neuronal behaviour using a system that employs the same medium as the brain.’

The tiny device that replicated a synapse capable of using salt and water was developed by experts in Korea and helped Kamsma to prove his theory within just three months.

“Coincidently, our paths crossed with the research group in South Korea during that period,” Kamsma recalled. “They embraced my theory with great enthusiasm and swiftly initiated experimental work based on it.”

The Financial Times had signed a licensing agreement with OpenAI to train artificial intelligence (AI) models on its attributed content, the newspaper said on Monday, in the latest media tie-up for the Microsoft-backed startup.

The agreement will enhance OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot ChatGPT with attributed FT content, and the firms will collaborate on developing new AI products and features for FT readers. 

The partnership also lets ChatGPT use select summaries, quotes and links to FT’s stories on its chatbot, the paper said in a statement, without disclosing financial terms of the deal.

OpenAI struck a similar deal with the Associated Press last year where the news publisher licensed a part its archive of news stories to OpenAI.

ChatGPT, which kickstarted the GenAI boom in late 2022, can mimic human conversation and perform tasks such as creating summaries of long text, writing poems and even generating ideas for a theme party.

Some outlets are already using generative AI for their content. BuzzFeed has said it will use AI to power personality quizzes on its site, and the New York Times used ChatGPT to create a Valentine’s Day message-generator last year.