Greetings. Viewers of Inderes TV. YIT held a capital markets update earlier this morning regarding the data center market, and I have the company's CEO, Heikki Vuorenmaa, here with me for an interview. In that regard, hello, Heikki!

Hello. Nice to be here. Indeed.

Could you first summarize today's takeaways? What did you want to tell investors?

Yes. First of all, we really. We held this update for the capital market today on what this data center market looks like. And we felt, particularly after our second quarter and these news items and order flow news from us, but also generally based on how this data center market has evolved, that it is important to actually present our investment view on what this data center market looks like from the builders' perspective in Finland. And it certainly looks good, because in our investment view, during our strategy period, by the end of '29, this data center market represents an opportunity of some 13 to 15 billion EUR for builders in Finland, and that would concretely mean growth of around 10% to the total construction volume today. And that is quite significant.

Other things communicated today are how we position ourselves in this market, and we went through the fact that out of the roughly one gigawatt currently under construction, YIT's share hovers around a total of roughly 30%. Also, what our capabilities are and how to build these. That is, we have capabilities all the way from the very beginning of the project, or project development, all the way to commissioning, and how these data centers are built. And on top of all this, of course, when one understands that the market potential is large and we are the leading player in it, the largest construction company in Finland, we then updated our growth targets for this strategy period as well. That is, for the entire group, we previously targeted an annual growth of 5%, and now we updated it to an annual growth of 10%.

That was indeed quite a concise list of the entire morning. In Finland, there are indeed many such projects, nearly 150 in the project pipeline. Of those, however, the vast majority. Do not yet have investment decisions. So how large a share do you believe will actually materialize into project starts over the coming years?

That is an excellent question. When we see, we see. Just as you noted, a tremendous amount of projects. Some are further along than others; in some, the grid and power availability are already secured, while others are still waiting for that. In some, these things are in place, but then the final investment. Kind of like the offtaker, the tenant there is present, so these are projects at very different stages.

However, we see this in such a way that we now showed and talked about this opportunity for our strategy period of '29. But this need for AI and digital solutions will not disappear by the end of '29. Every single one of us uses phones. We need data processing capabilities for how, for example, in Finland we will store our own national data, and through that, some of these projects might be such that they then take off. Only outside our strategy period, or their construction will continue far into the future. Today I do not yet dare to say how many of these specifically will take off or if there will be other larger ones coming, but indeed a significant part of them is already genuinely getting underway.

You indeed have relatively good visibility into these project starts as such a large player, so how do you see 2026–2029 now? So how will this market behave between these years now?

Now if we think today, the installed capacity was something like 400 megawatts. We talked about how it will probably multiply by about ten. So we can speak of quite strong growth.

Exactly. Google talked earlier this month about that investment of over 13 billion EUR, so will YIT get involved in hyperscaler projects in the future? What is your investment view on that?

Well, of course, that question contains the premise of whether we have been involved before, and if I answer that now, we have indeed been involved in hyperscaler projects before, so we are by no means absent from them so far. The kind of role that we as a company then want, or the kind of role that our customer would want in these situations, for example. That YIT would take? What solutions we bring to the table heavily determines how, for example, we participate in the data center construction of various customers.

A very interesting whole. Which you brought up? In addition to that, there are many other very interesting wholes in Finland, and we see it as important for us that it is a partnership. It is in balance. The starting point, and we can then promise the customer that when we enter into that partnership, the customer will get their solution in a timely manner and at the right cost.

Yep, you described three different customer segments in this market there. So what kind of differences are there in those projects and perhaps in those terms? How does it appear from the perspective of a construction company?

Probably the biggest difference in those projects stems from how well-shaped the plans are when entering into it, so that perhaps shows as one difference. And then, of course, how much the customer has their own expertise in construction management or construction in general varies somewhat from customer to customer, and that often also determines what kind of partner they themselves want for their construction journey. These two are perhaps elements that quite typically differ.

Indeed, international players specialized in data center construction have already been here in Finland for several years. So, if you think about the selection process from the customer's perspective, why would they choose YIT instead of, say, a player specialized in data center construction?

Well, we can certainly state that we already have quite good experience and expertise in this data center construction. We are. We are the largest player in Finland, we have the capabilities here, we have local capabilities. We have the ability to manage the subcontracting chain, we have an existing reliable partner network, and a lot of internal capability of our own. And then in this whole, we are also able to ensure that here locally, so to speak, in a boots-on-the-ground manner. Things move forward and happen, and things like that. Those are the elements that our customers value.

Indeed. Then when we talk about these data center construction projects, risks often come up, so could you describe a little bit to investors what causes the perhaps higher risk level in these, if compared to other contracting projects?

Schedule. Schedule is definitely number one, and then being able to execute it to the agreed schedule with the agreed quality. These are quite complex project wholes, however. That is, having the expertise and the agreed quality and the agreed schedule, those are where the core risks lie.

Indeed. Have you then defined, for example, for an individual project or alternatively for the share of data center construction in, say, the order book or project portfolio, some upper limit or cap?

Well, we certainly look at it on a project-by-project basis. We haven't started restricting it now. More importantly, as I stated, whenever we enter a project, we have to be absolutely certain that we have the opportunity to succeed, because we want our client to succeed. And if those things are in place, then we. Then we are able to move forward, and we always evaluate it comprehensively. The potential risks of the contract. Are they in balance? Do we have the expertise and capability in that area, the subcontracting chain, material availability, and so on? And this whole picture has to fall into place so that we can be sure the project will succeed.

Right, I see. You mentioned the subcontractor chain, so do you see potential bottlenecks there now that the market is growing quite rapidly?

That is definitely something we need to manage really well. It genuinely is, and it requires a lot of internal expertise. For example. When we talk about MEP or traditional building services engineering, it also requires us to have the capability to bring in, say, several smaller contractors, which in turn offers those opportunities, because it may well be that the size of the contract is so huge that an individual small player wouldn't have the opportunity to participate if we didn't do it for them. If we don't take a certain part of that management and execution and thereby the potential. And this is indeed what we have done.

We have invested, recruited, and grown our building services expertise, and YIT has quite a lot. I mean, looking back historically, there is of course the YIT-Caverion combination. And perhaps the impression might be that when Caverion left, we were left with nothing. We have recruited and grown a tremendous amount of expertise ourselves, which right now is precisely what enables us to. To also better manage that subcontracting chain there.

Right, then moving on to the potential, you already raised the growth targets for the construction and infrastructure segments back in the spring due to this market or growth, and now you've raised them again. So what has changed in between?

The market outlook has only strengthened and become clearer. Those are perhaps the two elements in it. We have certainly seen. Of course, this is ongoing. If we had been having this discussion a year ago, that market outlook. Completely different from what it is today. And I believe that when we discuss this again a year from now, there will be updates again, so it's a fast-changing market environment that has been behind this.

Right, you didn't touch the margin target. However, in these data center construction projects, the margin potential is typically also higher on the risk side, so when will that start to show more strongly in the profitability of those segments?

Well, now if we look at the profitability of infrastructure, it is. It has already improved, and there has been significant growth there. We see an improvement in profitability for the construction segment, but as was pointed out in this morning's update, this clearly materializes as construction, that type of construction. Even more of what we are doing, as they say from. 2.7. 2.9.

Right. How about operating in several countries other than Finland? So what kind of potential is there for contracting in data center construction in other operating countries?

Quite good. But, but. There isn't really anything to communicate about that yet today, because if you look at Finland's attractiveness as a European country, Finland is actually in a truly unique situation due to our energy and energy grid solutions that Finland has historically been able to create. Now, if you look at a data center and why data centers should be located elsewhere in a certain way, there is always the question of the distance to the service delivery, in other words, latency.

And that means that data center investments, for example. Of course, right now investments are also coming to other European countries, and we see a lot of activity coming to the Baltics, Poland, and our other operating countries as well. There too, just the same, if decisions of that kind were to arise, we must make sure that we have the expertise and the capability to handle them, that is of primary importance to us before we would start pursuing such an opportunity.

Right, then finally. What kind of potential do you see this wave of data center investments creating for YIT, for example, in energy construction?

Well, significant potential for sure, this will certainly catalyze investments that will come. Not just for the energy grid, but also for energy production, and through that, growth that creates wealth. We see. We see many localities where permanent jobs will be created in areas where there hasn't been talk of new investments for quite some time. We view this whole picture very positively, and it will support all of our work in Finland.

Does it function more as an option, or was it already included in these updated targets?

Well, now we were only talking about the data center package, and we briefly reminded people that the defense and energy markets are also active and growing there. The market is active and growing there. But as our CFO Erkka stated, for example, in our projected illustrative growth figures, Finnish housing was treated there as a complete option. And perhaps the day will come when we have to give, or we see how that market develops, so we will return in more detail to the energy market and its construction then.

We'll leave it at that. Thank you for the interview.

Thank you very much.