“The way data centres contribute to society through the provision of knowledge and access to services, and even to socially responsible projects such as waste-heat-enabled community heating, means that data centres should be viewed in the same light as a town hall or community centre.”
Frederik Doyé, SVP and head of Europe at Siemens Energy, sees no contradiction between data centres being a resource for society and sharing resources with society.
The future path for data centres is characterised by rapid change in areas such as technology designs, resource demand and regulation, among a spectrum of other transformations. Yet some cornerstones of data centre operations will remain constant – namely, always-on availability, competition with other power-intensive industries and risk.
This time last year, ready for the opening day of the Datacloud Global Congress (DCGC), Siemens Energy released a white paper titled ‘The Horizon Ahead: the Future of European Data Centers’.
The paper provides a comprehensive snapshot of the current environment and a horizon-scanning view of what the next issues of concern might be.
Dealing with risk
One theme that stands out in particular is managing risk. The anticipation, acknowledgment and mitigation of risk are areas into which Siemens Energy puts a great deal of effort.
From smaller-scale events – such as a farmer crashing his tractor into a local power transmission line – to the disruption of global supply chains, Siemens Energy has the systems in place to foresee risk and to plan for unlikely eventualities.
Just such an eventuality featured in the 2025 white paper: what might happen if there was prolonged disruption to a critical maritime trade route? This, of course, is something that made the unhappy transition from white paper to real life in 2026 and continues adversely to affect, among many, the data centre industry.
That the theme of maritime route disruption featured in the white paper is not by chance. Siemens Energy scans the horizon for any number of factors that could influence – positively or negatively – customer projects. It is a subject that the company spoke about at DCGC 2025.
This year, at the 2026 event, Siemens Energy again has a number of speakers discussing matters that they and the company are paying attention to as part of normal horizon scanning.
Land and density rush
Frederik Doyé is taking part in a panel discussion dealing with the data centre land rush and how the need for real estate to house increasing demand for these facilities’ services can be balanced with the needs of the communities in which they sit.
“We are seeing unprecedented growth in the number, scale and resource requirements of data centres,” says Doyé. “With this, of course, potentially comes some unease from the communities where they will be located.”
He adds: “We believe that data centres can positively contribute to communities and argue for finding a balance by considering placing these facilities in regions with enough energy, such as the Nordics, and then leveraging them across the continent. The strong voices in the industry need to advocate for these solutions.”
As a global giant, the company comes to DCGC ready to discuss the growing traction in Europe of the concepts of front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter provision pioneered by data centre operations in the US.
Also participating at DCGC 2026 is Tim Holt, an executive board member at Siemens Energy, who is taking part in a keynote panel discussing how the industry is adapting to the density challenge.
“AI is not only putting pressure on our energy systems,” says Holt. “It is also part of the solution. At Siemens Energy, we are scaling our digital capabilities accordingly.
“With AI, we can better analyse our products, but also the systems and environments they are working in. With all this data, we can improve forecasting, simulate likely scenarios, and prevent the issues brought about by power density and scaling before they arise.”
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