A long dormant industrial site in northern France is being rewritten as a new coordinate on the European digital map. The data center park built by Data4 in Escodan with a budget of 5 billion euros is the largest project implemented by this European operator in France to date, and a key step in seizing the computing power highland of the AI era.

Luozi FLAP-D core area

This 33 hectare park is transformed from the former Parc des Soufflantes industrial site, with a planned total capacity of 700 megawatts and the construction of four next-generation data centers. The site selection logic is very clear: Escodan is located at the geometric center of the five core European data markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin, with significant network latency and connectivity advantages.

Combined with abundant local energy supply and abundant labor resources, it is almost tailor-made for large-scale data centers. Data4 President and CEO Olivier Michelli stated that the project will inject new momentum into the regional digital economy with the support of multiple parties at the national, regional, and local levels. At the same time, in the context of the increasingly urgent demand for autonomous, controllable, green, and sustainable infrastructure in Europe, it will build a competitive computing base.

20 billion euros of European ambition

Escodan is just the latest addition to Data4's European expansion chessboard. At present, the company operates 10 data center parks in 6 European countries and plans to invest over 20 billion euros by 2030.

In the current era where the explosion of AI applications has led to exponential growth in computing power demand, this pace is not surprising. The competition for intelligent computing centers among global cloud service providers has spread from North America to the European continent, and Data4 has chosen to rebuild its digital infrastructure on local industrial brownfields, which not only avoids the approval cycle for new land use, but also conforms to Europe's policy orientation of emphasizing digital sovereignty. Keywords: data center, AI computing power

A digital fortress growing from industrial ruins reflects Europe's anxiety and determination in the competition for computing power. As North American cloud giants continue to raise their stakes, European local operators are accelerating their catch-up efforts under the banner of sovereign controllability and green low-carbon. Whether the Escodan Park can deliver on schedule and attract enough hyperscale tenants will be the first indicator to test the quality of this silent competition.Editor/Cheng Liting