AI boom redraws Europe's data centre map as power access overtakes location

Europe's data centre market is undergoing a major structural shift, as surging investment in AI infrastructure meets severe power constraints across the region's established hubs, changing where the next generation of digital infrastructure will be built. JLL's newly released EMEA Mid-Year Data Centre Report 2026 reveals that while Europe's core markets continue to experience record demand, developers and hyperscale cloud providers are now increasingly looking beyond traditional locations.

AI is the main driver of this transformation, as workloads require significantly larger sites, greater power availability and faster delivery times than conventional enterprise data centres. The world's four largest hyperscale cloud providers are expected to invest $725 billion in capital expenditure during 2026, a 77% increase on the $410 billion committed in 2025, with the overwhelming majority of investment directed towards AI compute and data centre infrastructure. JLL expects AI workloads to account for around half of all global data centre capacity by 2030, creating unprecedented demand for large-scale digital infrastructure across EMEA.

"We're seeing a fundamental change in how data centre infrastructure is planned. Historically, operators built as close as possible to major population centres, but today’s growing AI training infrastructure follows a different logic,” said Assad Noori, Head of Data Centres, Work Dynamics EMEA. “The determining factor is increasingly where sufficient power can be secured, rather than simply where demand exists. Data centres are being brought to where the power is, not the other way around.”

While investment continues to accelerate, Europe's established data centre markets are becoming increasingly constrained by grid availability, planning restrictions and land shortages.

Combined live capacity across the five-core FLAP-D markets – Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin – has now reached 3.8GW, more than doubling since 2019. A further 1.4GW is currently under construction, and 2GW remains in the planned pipeline, while annual deliveries are forecast to reach 453MW during 2026, almost three times the level recorded in 2020.

Despite this growth, supply continues to struggle to keep pace with demand. Vacancy across FLAP-D remains just 6.4%, with Frankfurt recording the region's tightest market at 3.1%, reflecting ongoing constraints on new capacity. Paris emerged as the strongest-performing market during the first half of 2026, delivering 72.5MW of new capacity, already exceeding its forecast for the full year, as France continues to benefit from strong power availability and investment in AI infrastructure.

"Europe's core markets will remain critical because enterprise demand isn't going anywhere. However, hyperscale AI infrastructure requires a completely different scale of power and land,” said Martin Jensen, EMEA Division President, Data Centres at JLL. He added: “These requirements are accelerating investment into secondary markets, greenfield developments and entirely new locations capable of supporting the next generation of AI capacity.”

Rather than slowing investment, these constraints are reshaping where development takes place. JLL's research shows that hyperscale campuses planned between 2026 and 2028 will be located an average of 175 kilometres from major hub cities, compared with just 46 kilometres for projects delivered between 2022 and 2025. At the same time, greenfield developments now account for 39% of Europe's future pipeline, compared with only 8% of projects delivered over the previous three years, demonstrating a fundamental shift away from traditional industrial estates towards larger regional sites capable of accommodating AI-scale infrastructure.

The report also highlights how the same trend is emerging across the wider EMEA region.

While heightened regional tensions have tempered the pace of project delivery in recent months, the Middle East continues to establish itself as one of the world's fastest-growing AI infrastructure markets. The region currently has 2.6GW of capacity under construction and a further 13.8GW in the planning pipeline, with capacity forecast to quadruple by 2030. Sovereign-backed developments, including HUMAIN's planned 100MW AI campus in Dammam and Stargate UAE's first 200MW AI facility, demonstrate how markets with abundant power, available land and long-term government backing are becoming increasingly attractive destinations for hyperscale investment.

“Momentum moderated over the past six months, with heightened regional risk leading several operators to defer investment decisions and extend delivery timelines,” said Daniel Thorpe, Head of Data Centre Research, EMEA. “However, the region hasn't stepped back, it's re-sequenced. Timelines have been adjusted, not intentions. He added: “And because sovereign capital doesn't wait on fundraising cycles, the question here is delivery sequencing, not viability.”

Looking ahead, JLL expects access to power to become the defining competitive advantage for developers, investors and governments seeking to attract AI infrastructure. As grid constraints persist across Europe's established hubs, markets capable of delivering large-scale power connections, planning certainty and suitable development land are expected to capture an increasing share of future investment.