In the age of artificial intelligence, data centers are no longer just warehouses for servers—they have become the nervous system of the digital economy. Across Europe, the explosive growth of data and AI-driven services raises urgent questions: How can Europe maintain digital sovereignty when the core AI technologies are dominated by U.S. and Chinese companies? How can it balance the demand for massive computing power with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability?
Experts are scrutinizing the key challenges and strategic choices shaping Europe’s data center landscape in the AI era, including the rise of AI Giga Factories, the debate between centralized mega-hubs and regionalized infrastructures, and the urgent quest for technological and economic sovereignty.
AI investment has become a daily headline, with tech giants such as OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, and Mistral making continuous announcements. Among these massive investments, data centers occupy a strategic position as the backbone of this industrial revolution.
At the AI Summit in Paris in February 2025, French President Macron unveiled a €109 billion AI investment plan for France, including €5 billion specifically earmarked for new AI infrastructure. In the United States, the scale is even larger, with $1.5 trillion announced for AI infrastructure, including $50 billion from Anthropic for new data centers in the coming years.
Data centers are now visible across Europe, from Marseille to other major hubs, reflecting their critical role as the backbone of the digital economy. The need for more and larger data centers stems from various factors, particularly the explosive growth of data generated and processed. As Fabrice Coquio, CEO of Digital Realty in France, explains: “At Digital Realty, we worked with UC Berkeley and found that data creation grows by 130% per year—tenfold every six years.”
This rapid increase requires physically larger and more energy-dense equipment, with some racks now consuming up to 100 kW—compared with just 5 kW two decades ago. Coquio notes, “Many data centers will therefore become obsolete. Furthermore, European directives impose strict energy efficiency standards on data centers.”
Generative AI relies on multiple layers of infrastructure, with a growing need for regionalizing services. Ophélie Coelho, a researcher in digital geopolitics, asserts, “The reason we need infrastructure is because we’re regionalizing part of the services that will perform AI computing. In other words, we need to ‘heat up silicon’ in edge data centers to run services that are now being regionalized.”
Regional hubs not only help to reduce latency but also keep sensitive data within national or European boundaries. They enhance resilience against network saturation and limit concentrated energy demands in massive sites. Coelho argues for a shift in logic regarding large hubs: “Instead of relying on a single centralized core technology, we could depend on agents—smaller models that run locally across a territory. This decentralized approach would allow for greater control over technological sovereignty and energy consumption.”
Europe faces a dual challenge: balancing centralized computing power essential for global-scale AI with decentralized infrastructure capable of enhancing sovereignty, data protection, and energy efficiency. As Coquio emphasizes, “There are about twenty players mastering these technology cores—and none are European.” If Europe aims to maintain technological independence, it must invest in infrastructure, including hardware and GPUs.
Location plays a crucial role in establishing Giga Factories, which require substantial energy resources. France has advantages such as abundant electricity and a decarbonized energy mix, making it an attractive option for Giga Factories. Coquio observes, “We have available and low-carbon electricity, making France a better choice than Poland for Giga Factories.”
However, AI raises pressing questions about European sovereignty. Coelho cautions that regionalization does not equate to independence, as many services and models remain under the control of global tech companies. The rapid development of data centers could lead to a greater dependency, as the underlying technologies often originate from outside Europe. “We are creating more data centers to gain control, but the value does not remain here, since what runs in them is not ours,” she states.
Environmental challenges are also paramount. The AI boom could see data centers emitting 920 MtCO₂e per year by 2030. Anne-Sophie Marquet, CFO at Metroscope, highlights, “Data centers currently consume 450 TWh per year, and this could triple by 2035—about 10% of the global electricity demand growth.”
Optimizing energy efficiency is crucial, and through sensor-based instrumentation and AI, data centers could better manage cooling and energy consumption, reducing both carbon footprint and energy stress. The innovative approach of frugal AI aims to decouple the relationship between increased computational demand and energy consumption, focusing on efficient architectures rather than raw computational power.
Ultimately, Europe’s data center development involves more than merely increasing capacity; it requires a strategic balance between computing power, sovereignty, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability. The coming decade will hinge on Europe’s ability to navigate these complex challenges and integrate technological, geopolitical, and environmental considerations into a coherent approach for AI.
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