Polar Secures Over €1B in 2026 Funding for AI Data Centers

Polar DC Group Limited has secured more than €1 billion in aggregate funding commitments during 2026, it announced on November 5, 2026, adding further shareholder investment and a new Palistar Capital facility to accelerate its European AI-ready data-center platform.

The milestone combines commitments made across the year rather than describing one new financing round. The additional shareholder investment comes from existing backers including H.I.G. Capital’s value-added infrastructure investment strategy and LIAN Group. Palistar has committed an initial €75 million development financing facility, with flexibility to increase it through additional lender commitments.

The facility is intended for early-stage land acquisition, grid connections, design and permitting. Those works are meant to progress new opportunities across Polar’s European platform, with the additional capital directed at advancing its development pipeline in Finland and Germany.

Nordic Bond and Norwegian Construction

An €800 million senior secured Nordic bond announced on June 1, 2026, forms the earlier part of the funding package. The company reported that demand reached four times the offering, allowing it to upsize the placement from €750 million while pricing tightened. Alongside committed shareholder equity, the bond was raised to support contracted Norwegian projects including DRA02 and HER01.

Proceeds were earmarked to refinance existing debt at the Drangedal campus and support completion of additional facilities scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027. The bond and Palistar facility therefore address different parts of the expansion: refinancing and completing Norwegian capacity compared with preparing earlier-stage opportunities in Finland and Germany.

Operating Sites Behind the Expansion

DRA01 in Tørdal, Norway, was operating with 12MW of IT capacity for Crusoe Cloud when Polar announced the site’s status on October 21, 2026. The facility combines modular infrastructure, cooling technology and resilient electrical systems designed around the requirements of GPU deployments.

DRA02 is the next phase of the Tørdal campus and an expansion of the Crusoe partnership. Polar expects it to go live in late 2027 with an additional 40MW of critical, liquid-cooled IT capacity, also powered by hydroelectricity. DRA02’s planned delivery is part of the contracted Norwegian program supported by the June bond and shareholder equity.

The current DRA site specification lists 52MW of IT load in development on a 60,600-square-meter plot in Norway’s NO2 region, with the campus in phased development. Its design specifies 100% hydro power, redundant utility power and N+1 electrical infrastructure. The specification lists free cooling, rear-door heat exchangers or direct liquid cooling for high-performance computing, and a target power usage effectiveness of 1.12.

HER01 in Herøya is also part of the buildout, designed to deliver an initial 40MW of capacity powered entirely by renewable hydroelectric energy.

The practical significance of the new commitments is their position in the development cycle. Norwegian financing is tied to contracted projects and completion work, with DRA01 already operating and DRA02 planned as the next Tørdal phase. The Palistar facility starts earlier in the cycle, funding the land, grid and permitting work needed to turn Finnish and German opportunities into developable sites. Polar’s next phase depends on advancing that preparatory work while delivering the Norwegian capacity its existing funding supports.