Data4, a European data center operator and investor, has launched a €5 billion (US$ 5.8 billion) data center campus project in Escaudain, northern France, marking the company’s largest development in the country. The project will redevelop the former Parc des Soufflantes industrial site into a 33-hectare campus with a planned capacity of 700 MW.
According to a company press release, Data4 selected Escaudain because of its location between major European data markets, including Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin (FLAP-D) plus access to energy resources and a regional workforce. The data center campus project will host four next-generation data centers and is intended to support growing demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure in Europe.
Olivier Micheli, President & CEO, Data4, said, “This project in a highly strategic region at the crossroads of Europe’s connectivity and communications networks, with the support of national, regional and local stakeholders, will help revitalize the area through the digital industry while building the sovereign, sustainable and competitive infrastructure that Europe increasingly needs.”
The Escaudain campus forms part of its wider European expansion plans as Data4 currently operates 10 campuses across six European countries and plans to invest more than €20 billion (US$ 23 billion) in Europe by 2030.
The Escaudain project comes amid rising demand for computing and data-processing capacity driven by the growth of AI applications. The development will also contribute to efforts to expand digital infrastructure capacity within Europe.