Digital Realty has opened its first data centre in Barcelona in a bid to strengthen its position across the Mediterranean.
Referred to as BCN1, the data centre is in the Sant Adrià de Besòs innovation area and represents how Digital Realty seeks to support the development of the Mediterranean into a global digital infrastructure hub for technologies such as AI and cloud computing. It also hopes to help reinforce Barcelona’s role as a critical interconnection point alongside Madrid, Marseille, Athens, Heraklion, Rome and Lisbon.
“Barcelona is emerging as a world-class digital gateway to the Mediterranean. Digital Realty’s Barcelona campus puts us right at the heart of that transformation, built to the highest sustainability standards,” said Fabrice Coquio, SVP and MD, Europe Med at Digital Realty. “Together with our campuses in Madrid and Lisbon, we are proud to offer our customers a highly interconnected and environmentally responsible regional platform on the Iberian Peninsula.”
The news comes as Barcelona continues to rapidly emerge as a key digital infrastructure hub in Southwestern Europe, supported by strong growth in the data centre market and rising investment in network connectivity and subsea cable system expansions. Strategic landings such as 2Africa and Medusa in Barcelona are strengthening connectivity across the region, with the city’s data centre capacity expected to keep scaling through 2030.
Digital Realty has been committed to boosting Mediterranean growth for some time, having debuted a new data centre with Schneider Electric in Crete last year. The facility was designed to support key regional markets forming part of Digital Realty’s Mediterranean platform.
In a similar vein, BCN1 has 14 megawatts (MW) of total planned capacity and is designed to support connectivity with a broad range of network providers. It is strategically located close to major global connectivity routes to enable low latency between the Americas, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Digital Realty said the new site complements its well-established campus in Marseille and will work to enhance network diversity and resilience across the region. Subsea cables landing in both cities are interconnected, but cross-border fibre links to Marseille and Frankfurt are expected to strengthen Barcelona’s role in regional and international traffic flows.
The data centre is also expected to support the Catalan economy as it continues to digitise, joining Digital Realty’s existing data centre offerings on the Iberian Peninsula – including its recently announced data centre in Lisbon and the four facilities currently operating in Madrid. These all support Digital Realty’s goal in enhancing its footprint across the EMEA region.
BCN1 also extends Digital Realty’s global data centre platform, PlatformDIGITAL, which stands to enable local and international businesses to scale their AI deployments and data localisations sustainably. The site was also designed in accordance with Digital Realty’s participation in the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact (CNDCP), with the operator sharing that it exceeds industry standards in energy efficiency, incorporating advanced power and cooling architectures, renewable energy procurement and back-up generators fuelled by HVO100.
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