Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the European digital infrastructure market. The demand for data center capacity has accelerated dramatically in recent years. Technology companies are investing billions into European data facilities—a trend that will profoundly shape Europe’s economy in the coming decade. The continent now faces an unprecedented infrastructure challenge driven by the rapid rise of AI. According to Gartner, spending on AI is expected to grow by 30% annually, reaching $133 billion by 2028. This scale of growth demands a complete redesign of Europe’s data backbone.
Tech giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are pouring massive funds into the expansion of their European data centers. Their development strategies act as a catalyst for the entire market. Poland, as part of the European Union, will be directly affected by this technological shift.
Rapid Growth in Europe’s Data Center Capacity
The surge in data center development has exceeded all market expectations. In 2024, operators added an average of 33 MW of new capacity—double the 16 MW average from the previous year. By 2025, this figure is projected to reach 47 MW, effectively tripling within just three years. Hyperscale cloud providers are driving this expansion, with projects exceeding 100 MW becoming increasingly common. These massive facilities are primarily dedicated to AI model training.
As part of the “AI Continent Action Plan,” the European Commission has set an ambitious goal: to triple the EU’s data center capacity within the next five to seven years.
19 European AI Factory Locations
To reach this goal, the EU has allocated €200 billion in funding. In total, 19 AI Factory locations across Europe have been approved. The first seven—Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Sweden—were announced in late 2024, followed by six new sites in October 2025, including the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
This European “AI push” competes directly with the wave of investments coming from the United States. Companies like OpenAI, Meta, Amazon, and Google have all announced new major projects. OpenAI plans to build an AI data center in Norway, while Brookfield’s “Stargate” project in Stockholm, estimated at $10 billion, will deliver 750 MW of AI computing capacity over a 10–15 year build-out.
Europe’s Energy Challenge: Powering the AI Revolution
Data center electricity demand is rising almost as fast as their capacity. Current European consumption sits at 62 TWh per year, roughly 2% of total EU electricity use. McKinsey forecasts this figure to climb above 150 TWh by 2030—a threefold increase.
Training large language models like ChatGPT requires enormous amounts of energy, as thousands of GPUs run for weeks in parallel. Goldman Sachs reports that 170 GW of power connection requests are pending across Europe—roughly one-third of the continent’s peak grid demand. Even if only a fraction of these projects are realized, overall electricity needs could rise by 60%.
Germany, the UK, and France remain Europe’s biggest power consumers for data infrastructure (4.26 GW, 3.69 GW, and 1.72 GW respectively in 2024), representing the bulk of the region’s digital energy footprint.
Big Data: The Foundation of the AI Era
Artificial intelligence cannot exist without massive datasets. Training large language models involves processing trillions of data tokens, each representing a small unit of text or information. Hyperscale operators now handle hundreds of trillions of model executions—an unimaginable scale that makes previous generations of data centers seem primitive.
For instance, Meta used over 48,000 GPUs with a combined 4.5 petabytes of VRAM to train Llama 3.1. Such models require purpose-built AI-ready data centers equipped with cutting-edge hardware like NVIDIA H100/A100 and Google TPUs.
Shifting Geography: From FLAP-D to Emerging Markets
Europe’s traditional data center hubs—Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin (FLAP-D)—are reaching their limits. Frankfurt and Dublin have nearly exhausted their available power capacity; Ireland has even introduced a moratorium on new data center developments.
In contrast, Nordic countries are becoming increasingly attractive: cool climates, reliable power supply, and low-cost renewable energy create ideal conditions for data operations. Finland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Poland are also emerging as new hotspots.
Poland, in particular, has been included in the EU’s AI Factory initiative. Its strategic position between Western and Eastern Europe, access to reliable power networks, and competitive operating costs make it a prime location for future digital infrastructure investments.
Infrastructure Challenges: Grid, Land, and Workforce
Europe’s energy system was never designed for such exponential demand growth. Building new transmission lines can take up to 10 years, while the AI industry evolves on a much shorter timeline.
Land availability is another constraint: large sites suitable for hyperscale data centers are rare, especially in dense metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, the shortage of skilled professionals—electrical engineers, network technicians, and data infrastructure experts—is becoming critical.
Countries like Poland are responding with new training initiatives, often co-financed by major tech corporations, to ensure a steady pipeline of AI infrastructure talent.
Digital Sovereignty: Europe’s Strategic Imperative
The European Union is increasingly aware of the risks of technological dependency. China controls about 75% of global computing capacity, and the United States dominates the generative AI and foundational model landscape. Europe holds only around 5% of global compute power—a serious vulnerability for its digital and economic security.
The AI Continent Action Plan is the EU’s response: a coordinated effort to build an independent computing infrastructure that ensures data sovereignty and compliance with European regulations such as GDPR.
Poland, as an EU and NATO member, plays a key strategic role, serving as both a technological hub and a geopolitical bridge between East and West.
The Future of Europe’s Digital Infrastructure
The next phase of Europe’s digital infrastructure will be shaped by advances in energy efficiency, liquid cooling, and renewable integration. Modular nuclear reactors, large-scale solar power, and smart grid connectivity will all help stabilize and decarbonize future data centers.
Edge computing will also gain importance, decentralizing workloads and improving latency across the continent. With its growing renewable capacity and industrial momentum, Poland is well-positioned to become a major node in Europe’s AI infrastructure network.
Conclusion
The Rise of AI and Big Data is transforming Europe’s digital landscape at an unprecedented pace. Demand for data centers is skyrocketing, fueled by AI-driven computation and storage needs. The European Union is responding with massive investments aimed at achieving technological independence and infrastructure resilience.
