Data Centres: The AI Revolution Is Now a Battle for Infrastructure

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence is driving a surge in demand for physical resources — energy, water, minerals, and land. While efforts toward digital sobriety have been initiated, they are quickly outpaced by increasingly sophisticated and widespread use cases. A striking example is Meta’s planned mega-datacentre in Louisiana, set to occupy more than 4 million square metres of former rice fields and requiring the construction of two gas-fired power plants to meet its energy needs. Such infrastructure, essential for powering models like GPT-4 and Gemini, highlights the scale of the resource race triggered by the exponential need for computing power. 

Beyond construction, the ongoing operation of these data hubs by tech giants results in immense energy consumption. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity demand from datacentres is expected to more than double by 2030, reaching 945 TWh — more than Japan’s current annual consumption. Securing reliable and affordable electricity supply has therefore become one of the central challenges of large-scale AI deployment. 

“Today, data centre operators are primarily focused on competitiveness and energy costs.”– Florian Revellat, Partner at Eight Advisory. 

As major European data hubs — including Frankfurt, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin — approach saturation, operators are shifting towards secondary locations such as Southern Europe and Scandinavia. In these regions, access to abundant and competitively priced energy has become a decisive factor. While proximity to financial markets remains important, operators are now prioritising cost-efficiency, particularly through favourable energy mixes. 

In this context, the sector is experiencing strong investment momentum, marked by a record volume of M&A activity in 2024. Investors continue to bet on long-term growth, fuelled by the rapid adoption of AI and the relentless demand for computational capacity. 

Read the full version of this article by Rachel Antman, published in L’Actuariel (available in French) and download our related white paper Creating value from the data centre opportunity: Strategies for growth in the European market and key value drivers.