City of Helsinki Builds Core Public Service System on UpCloud with Kodan and Kanto Company

The City of Helsinki is moving forward with a new core information system for public services, built in collaboration with Kodan and Kanto Company and powered by UpCloud’s cloud infrastructure.

The project has now entered its development phase, where the foundation for a resilient and secure system is being implemented. At its core, the initiative reflects a clear shift in how public sector organizations approach infrastructure decisions: prioritizing control, locality, and long-term resilience.

A practical approach to digital sovereignty

For Helsinki, digital sovereignty was not an afterthought. It was part of the procurement criteria from the start.

“In this day and age, digital sovereignty is not just a principle, but a concrete starting point for decision-making, and the City of Helsinki takes this into account already in the procurement phase.”

Marko Loukkola, CEO, Kodan

The requirements emphasized a cloud environment located in Finland, along with a provider operating within the EU/EEA. By selecting UpCloud, the project meets these criteria while ensuring that infrastructure decisions remain aligned with European regulatory frameworks and local control.

This is not only about compliance. It is also about preparedness. Choosing a domestic provider and local expertise helps reduce exposure to geopolitical uncertainty and dependency on global hyperscalers.

A conscious infrastructure choice

The decision to work with a European cloud provider reflects a broader shift in how critical infrastructure is evaluated.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to participate in the project. At this moment in time, choosing a European provider is not merely a technical question, it is a conscious value choice in favor of digital sovereignty and European independence.”

Joel Pihlajamaa, Founder and CTO, UpCloud

In practice, this means building systems where data location, jurisdiction, and operational control are clearly defined from the outset. For public sector organizations, that clarity is becoming a requirement rather than a preference.

Built for availability, even in exceptional conditions

The system being developed is critical to the functioning of public services in the Helsinki metropolitan area. That raises the bar for availability and continuity.

“It’s great that Helsinki can implement a critical core information system using modern cloud services from a Finnish provider, ensuring the service remains available even in exceptional circumstances and retaining full control over data management.”

Hannu Heikkinen, Chief Digital Officer, City of Helsinki

To support this, the architecture includes built-in redundancy. Primary data is hosted in Finland, with additional protection mechanisms extending to Sweden. This setup ensures continuity while keeping data within trusted jurisdictions.

A partnership model for public sector infrastructure

The project brings together Kodan as the application developer and Kanto Company as the DevOps and cloud optimization partner, both part of the Kluuvi Group. UpCloud provides the cloud platform and infrastructure underpinning the system.

This model reflects a broader pattern. Public sector organizations can rely on close collaboration between software developers, infrastructure specialists, and cloud providers to deliver systems that meet strict requirements for security, performance, and control.

Keeping critical data under control

A central goal of the project is to ensure that Helsinki retains control over its most important data.

By keeping data primarily in domestic data centers and within European legislation, the city reduces reliance on external actors and strengthens its ability to manage critical services independently.

At the same time, the use of modern cloud infrastructure enables flexibility and scalability without compromising on these principles.

What this project signals

This is a concrete example of how digital sovereignty is moving from policy language into implementation.

It shows that:

• Public sector organizations are embedding sovereignty requirements early in procurement
• Local infrastructure and EU jurisdiction are becoming decisive factors
• High availability and resilience can be built without giving up control
• Partnerships between local providers can deliver systems at national scale

For UpCloud, the project reinforces a core idea: that organizations should not have to trade performance or reliability for control.

Instead, they can have both.

Working on public sector or regulated infrastructure? Speak with our team and see how you can meet sovereignty requirements without compromising on performance.

*The quotes in this blog post are our own translations of the original Finnish-language press release quotes.