Data centre of the month: Data4’s site in Hanau, Germany

Brookfield-owned Data4 is developing a 180-megawatt (MW) data centre campus on a 25-acre site, promising to create several hundred jobs and invest €2 billion (US$2.37bn) in the facility.

First breaking ground on the site in September 2025, the facility is being constructed on the site of a former military base in Hanau, Germany, having been purchased in 2023. The campus is located 30 minutes from the centre of Frankfurt, a critical data centre market in Europe, and is expected to be powered by 100% renewable energy.

The data centre supports Data4’s ambition: to invest more than €20 billion ($23.29 billion) by 2030 to build a strong European digital backbone that can support rising digital growth.

Making progress in a strong data centre market

The Hanau data centre, when completed, is expected to handle large-scale cloud and AI workloads with significant electrical capacity and technology that prioritises sustainability. This can also offer companies and public stakeholders better access to computing power that would be impossible to deploy locally.

“Germany is one of Europe’s leading countries when it comes to digital infrastructure, making it a strategically important market for us,” said Olivier Micheli, president and CEO of Data4, speaking in September. “We want to develop the new campus in Hanau into one of the most powerful, sustainable and innovative data centre locations in Europe and thus contribute to the digital future of the continent.

“This is just the beginning for us: we plan to further expand our presence in Germany to be the European data centre champion and open additional locations in the coming years.”

Campuses designed for AI at scale

Data4 operates data centres that can accommodate high-density racks specifically designed for GPU environments. However, the company is moving further to develop veritable AI campuses that can support power capacities of 500MW to one-gigawatt (1GW).

As it has established itself as a strategic partner to host and accelerate the development of AI across Europe, Data4 is positioning itself as one of the key stakeholders able to support sustainable and fast-paced digital growth.

The company has nearly 40 data centres and 1.5GW of gross reserved capacity across France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece and Germany. As far as Hanau is concerned, Professor Dr Kristinia Sinemus said it is an important building block for the digital transformation for the region and Germany as a whole.

“Germany and Europe need to actively promote the further development of AI. This can only be achieved if the necessary digital infrastructure is available to a sufficient extent – for example, through powerful data centres such as those being built here,” she said.

“AI opens up enormous opportunities, particularly for German and European companies, to significantly strengthen their innovative power and competitiveness.”

Powering up sustainability

For Data4, sustainability takes centre stage in data centre construction. In line with its sustainable promises, the company said the Hanau campus will run on 100% decarbonised energy sources.

To facilitate this energy supply, the construction of a combined heat and power plant and a substation is planned.

Data4 said it seeks to use waste heat from the data centre for the benefit of the Hanau population. Additionally, recycled demolition materials are to be reintegrated into the construction during the redevelopment of the former military site.

Positioned as potentially becoming the largest data centre campus in greater Frankfurt, Hanau is embracing a sustainable future and wants to position itself as a significant player in the wider European data centre map.

Professor Dr Sinemus added: “It is crucial that, while pursuing digitalisation, we also focus on renewable energies and use resources efficiently. The planned use of the waste heat generated shows how digitalisation and environmental protection can go hand in hand today.”

Looking ahead, Data4 said it’s prioritising sustainable growth. The company recently partnered with TotalEnergies to supply renewable electricity to its data centres for 10 years.

As of January 2026, TotalEnergies is providing a stable consumption profile (Clean Firm Power) to Data4’s sites in Spain. It will represent a total volume of 610 GWh, with TotalEnergies supplying renewable electricity generated by Spanish wind and solar farms with a capacity equivalent to 30MW.

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Datacloud Global Congress

Industry heavyweights from the data centre sector will convene at this year’s Datacloud Global Congress, where power and energy management will be a key focus. With AI workloads driving record electricity demand, the event will spotlight strategies for self-generated power, grid resilience, and sustainable energy integration. Attendees can expect in-depth discussions on how recent initiatives, such as the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, are reshaping the economics and operations of hyperscale and edge data centres worldwide. To register for the event, click here.