European ammunition maker's growth 'challenged by storage of cat videos'

Nammo says TikTok's new data centre in Norway is using up spare electricity capacity in the area

A Nammo stand at Marine West Expo in California. Alamy

A European ammunition manufacturer working to meet demand from the war in Ukraine has complained its growth is being hampered by “the storage of cat videos” at a nearby TikTok data centre.

Nammo, which is part-owned by the Norwegian government, said an expansion project at its biggest factory has been affected by the building of the Chinese video-sharing app’s new data centre, which is using up spare electricity capacity in the area.

“We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos,” the company’s chief executive, Morten Brandtzæg, told the Financial Times.

He said demand for munitions is about 15 times higher than normal and the industry needs to invest €2 billion ($2.15 billion) to meet Ukraine’s needs.

Estimates suggest Ukraine uses up to 6,000 artillery shells daily to repel invading Russian forces.

On Monday, officials from Poland and the EU discussed artillery munitions manufacturing as part of a new €2 billion programme to supply Ukraine in its war and to replenish Europe’s dwindling stocks.

The EU has announced a programme to reimburse countries offering artillery ammunition to Ukraine from a €1 billion fund. It aims to spend an equal amount on increasing production in 11 countries with such manufacturing capacity.

TikTok’s new storage centre aims to address criticism over concerns about the use of its data.

Its data centre in the Hamar region of Norway is one of two centres it is opening in Europe, with the other in Ireland.

The local energy provider in Norway, Elvia, confirmed to the Financial Times that the electricity network had no spare capacity, having allocated it to the data centre on a “first-come, first-served” basis.

It said extra capacity would take time to become available.

TikTok said it would begin storing its European user data on the continent this year, reducing its transfer outside of the region. Employee access to user data internally would also be limited, it said.

The UK government, UK Parliament, European Commission and the European Parliament have all banned TikTok from members' phones, citing the need for cyber security.

Devices owned by the US government were also recently banned from having the app installed. There are also bills floating in Congress — including one endorsed by the White House — that would ban the app used by 150 million Americans.

“The House will be moving forward with legislation to protect Americans from the technological tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party,” US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter.

In a hearing last week in the US, TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew was asked if the app had spied on Americans at Beijing's request. He answered: “No.”

Republican Representative Neal Dunn then referred to the company's disclosure in December that some China-based employees at ByteDance improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company.

He repeated his question about whether ByteDance was spying.

“I don't think that spying is the right way to describe it,” Mr Chew said.