EMEA data centre mid-year 2026 report

• FLAP-D on track for a record year, with growth broadening across markets. Live capacity has reached 3.8 GW, with ~453 MW of full-year deliveries forecast, almost tripling 2020 volumes. Paris led H1 2026 with 72.5 MW, already ahead of its full-year forecast, while Frankfurt’s delivery is paced by connection lead times, and capital is broadening into Milan, Iberia and the Nordics rather than leaving the core.
• Middle East pipeline is paused, not cancelled with 2.6 GW in development. Live capacity has reached 1.6 GW and 13.8 GW sits in the planning pipeline, still pointing to a quadrupling by 2030. Regional conflict has stalled major completions overthe past six months, but schemes are being deferred rather than dropped.
• The next capacity cycle adds greenfield sites without displacing the core hubs. Greenfield rises from 8% to 39% of the 2026 to 2028 pipeline, and hyper scale sites within it average 175 km from a hub city, up from 46 km. AI-scale power and land needs are pushing operators onto secondary sites; those with power there capture the growth.

FLAP-D combined live capacity has grown from 1.8 GW in 2019 to around 3.8 GW by H1 2026, more than doubling in seven years. A further 1.4 GW is under construction and 2 GW planned, putting the core markets on track to almost double again.​

H1 2026 deliveries totalled 194 MW across the five metros. Paris led with 72.5 MW, already ahead of its full-year forecast, as France’s nuclear capacity and EDF’s grid-ready pipeline continue to attract new demand. London added 49 MW off the region’s largest base, followed by Frankfurt at 45 MW, Amsterdam at 16.3 MW and Dublin at 11.4 MW.​

Frankfurt retains 311 MW in development and 687 MW planned, though lead times of 24 months or more pace delivery. Ireland’s new framework, live since 31 March, is redirecting capital rather than releasing it: proximate generation and renewables matching requirements are pushing developers to regional sites rather than the Greater Dublin Area.

Colocation vacancy across FLAP-D stood at 6.4% in Q2 2026, down from a 16.9% peak in 2021 but broadly unchanged over the past two quarters. Rates edged up modestly in London (7.4%), Paris (8.0%) and Dublin (7.2%) as small tranches of new supply reached the market, while absorption continued to outpace deliveries overall.​

Divergence between the markets is widening. Frankfurt remains the tightest at 3.1%, less than half the FLAP-D average, while Amsterdam has settled around 6.5% after its steep multi-year decline. Availability of contiguous, high-density space is scarce across every FLAP-D market.​

Pre-leasing now defines occupier strategy. Committing well ahead of requirement is a necessity rather than a choice, and with speculative development limited, partial pre-lets have become the norm across major markets.

FLAP-D prime powered land costs have risen 82% since 2021, from €1.24 million to €2.26 million per MW. Primary markets now command a 2.3x premium over secondary locations and 4x over tertiary, with the spread averaging 2.9x within individual countries.​

Cost is only one dimension, and demand is splitting in two. Latency-bound workloads remain anchored to primary markets, where lead times of up to 10 years limit new supply. Even so, FLAP-D holds 1.4 GW under construction and 2 GW planned.​

AI training requirements of 100 MW and above are not latency-sensitive and follow available power instead. Over half of Europe’s AI growth is now expected in the Nordics and Tier 2 markets, and Middle East capacity is set to quadruple by 2030.​

The pipeline’s shift away from the hubs is what makes the discount accessible, so distance has become the route to lower land costs. That route is open only where power can be secured, which is why the premium persists for workloads that must stay close.