Europe’s artificial intelligence boom is triggering a major shift in where the continent builds its most powerful data centres — and increasingly, the winning locations are not London, Frankfurt or Amsterdam.
Instead, AI infrastructure developers are moving toward rural areas, industrial zones and locations far from major cities, where electricity can be secured more quickly, land is cheaper and grid connections may be easier to obtain.
The shift is being driven by one increasingly decisive factor: power.
According to analysis from commercial real-estate firm JLL cited by Reuters, hyperscale data-centre projects planned for Europe between 2026 and 2028 are expected to be located an average of 175 kilometres from major cities, compared with just 46 kilometres for projects delivered between 2022 and 2025.
That represents a dramatic change in how Europe’s digital infrastructure is being planned.
AI Is Taking Data Centres Where the Electricity Is
Traditional data centres have often been built close to major population and business centres because proximity to users and connectivity mattered.
AI is changing that calculation.
Large AI training facilities can consume enormous amounts of electricity and require substantial cooling infrastructure. As a result, having access to sufficient power is becoming more important than being close to the customers using the computing capacity.
“The determining factor is increasingly where sufficient power can be secured,” JLL’s head of data centres for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Assad Noori, told Reuters.
The implication is significant: Europe’s AI infrastructure is increasingly being built around the power grid rather than around the city.
JLL data cited by Reuters shows that greenfield developments — projects built on previously undeveloped land — account for 39% of Europe’s future data-centre pipeline, compared with only 8% of projects that have already been delivered.
At the same time, the proportion of future projects located in inner-city areas is expected to fall to 5% from 13%.
The Cost of Staying in Europe’s Biggest Tech Hubs
The traditional European data-centre markets — Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin — remain strategically important.
But they are increasingly running into the same problem: there simply isn’t enough land and electricity available at the scale required by the newest generation of AI infrastructure.
Powered land in Europe’s core markets averages around €2.36 million per megawatt of IT load, according to JLL.
The price gap becomes even more striking outside those markets.
In secondary cities, the average falls to about €978,000 per megawatt, while tertiary locations such as Bordeaux average around €512,000. JLL data cited by Reuters puts Amsterdam at approximately €2.7 million per megawatt, London at €2.6 million and Frankfurt at €2.5 million.
For developers planning facilities that can require hundreds of megawatts, those differences can quickly translate into billions of euros.
Rural Spain and Northern Sweden Enter the AI Race
The geography of Europe’s next AI buildout is already beginning to reflect this reality.
Reuters reported that of nine proposed European data centres with capacity of at least one gigawatt, only one is planned near a major city — Paris.
The other proposed projects are spread across locations including rural Spain and northern Sweden, illustrating how access to land and electricity is reshaping site selection.
This could provide a major economic opportunity for areas outside Europe’s traditional technology capitals.
New data centres can bring construction activity, investment, infrastructure upgrades and potentially new jobs to regions looking to attract economic development.
But the boom also comes with a growing list of complications.
Europe’s Power Grid Is Becoming the New Bottleneck
The challenge is not simply finding a piece of land.
The electricity must actually be delivered to it.
A recent Euronews analysis highlighted the growing strain AI infrastructure is placing on Europe’s electricity networks, with grid connection capacity, congestion, connection lead times and energy prices increasingly becoming constraints on new developments.
The European Commission has also acknowledged the scale of the challenge.
In its 2026 proposals for Europe’s cloud and AI ecosystem, the Commission said data centres currently account for around 2.5% of EU electricity consumption, while installed data-centre capacity is expected to rise from approximately 12 GW in 2025 to around 28 GW by 2030.
The Commission warned that rapidly increasing demand could add pressure to already-congested grids and potentially push up electricity prices if expansion is not properly managed.
That makes access to electricity potentially more valuable than access to a major city.
Europe Wants More Data Centres — But Faster
Brussels is simultaneously trying to accelerate the expansion of Europe’s digital infrastructure.
The European Commission has proposed measures designed to help expand data-centre capacity and simplify some permitting processes.
Under the proposed framework, designated data-centre acceleration zones could benefit from aggregated permitting, with the Commission proposing that permitting procedures for projects in those zones should not exceed 12 months once a comprehensive application has been submitted, subject to the framework’s conditions.
The broader goal is to strengthen Europe’s cloud and AI infrastructure and reduce its dependence on computing capacity located elsewhere.
But speeding up construction creates another question: how much infrastructure can Europe build before local communities begin pushing back?
The Water and Environmental Problem
Electricity is not the only resource under pressure.
AI data centres also require cooling, which can involve significant water consumption depending on the technology and local climate.
That is creating a difficult balancing act for governments and developers.
Europe wants to attract billions of euros in AI investment and establish itself as a major global AI power. At the same time, communities are increasingly scrutinising the environmental costs of large-scale data-centre developments, particularly their demands for electricity, water and land.
Recent reporting has shown that public opposition is becoming a factor in some European projects, including developments in the UK where residents and campaigners have raised concerns about environmental impacts and infrastructure pressure.
The political challenge could therefore become just as important as the technological one.
The AI Infrastructure Spending Surge
The financial incentive behind the expansion is enormous.
JLL estimates that the world’s four largest hyperscale cloud providers are expected to spend around US$725 billion in 2026, up from approximately US$410 billion in 2025, with AI computing and data-centre infrastructure accounting for much of that investment.
JLL also estimates that AI workloads could represent around half of global data-centre capacity by 2030.
That level of investment is creating a fierce competition for the ingredients AI companies need most: electricity, land, connectivity and permits.
And Europe is increasingly realising that the biggest constraint may not be the availability of AI chips or computing demand.
It may be the infrastructure underneath them.
The Next AI Battle May Be Fought Over Electricity
Europe’s data-centre landscape is entering a new phase.
The traditional model — build close to major cities and users — is giving way to a model where power availability, land prices and grid access determine the map.
That could turn previously overlooked regions into major AI infrastructure hubs.
France, for example, is attracting growing attention because of its power availability and government support. Reuters reported this week that SoftBank has pledged €45 billion toward three data centres in northern France with a combined projected capacity of 3.1 GW by 2031, potentially rising to €75 billion and 5 GW.
But Europe’s AI race now faces a fundamental question:
If AI developers move away from the cities to find cheaper land and electricity, will Europe have enough power — and enough public support — to keep the AI boom running?
The answer could determine not only where Europe’s next generation of data centres is built, but how quickly the continent can compete in the global AI race.
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