Greece is preparing to open its largest data centre yet, amid a boom in global demand driven largely by artificial intelligence (AI).
On Tuesday, the energy and industrial company Metlen said it had delivered the new facility to Digital Reality, which owns more than 300 data centres worldwide. Called Athens-3 (ATH3), the new centre was built at an old industrial site in the town of Koropi, not far from Athens International Airport.
The 8,600 square metre facility offers cloud services and data storage and management, and will serve Greece, southeastern Europe, and beyond.
The rise of AI has spurred a race to build data centres that can provide the enormous computer power needed to train and use these models. In Europe, demand is projected to rise threefold by 2030, according to an analysis from McKinsey.
In Greece, the launch of ATH3 represents the government's latest foray into these advanced technologies.
"I have not hidden my ambition," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the inauguration of the ATH3 foundation in 2022.
"In five years, the technology sector will contribute 10 per cent to our country's GDP".
The ATH3 data centre adds to Digital Reality's existing facilities in Greece, including Athens-1 (ATH1), Athens-2 (ATH2), and Heraklion-1 (HER1).
But the company is not Greece's only player in this space. Late last year, the French firm DATA4 held a ceremony for its new campus in Peania, which is also east of Athens.
The ceremony, which was organised with the support of the Franco-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, took place two months after DATA4 announced an investment of more than €300 million.
DATA4 CEO Olivier Micheli said that investment is part of the company's plan to invest €7 billion in Europe by 2030, which would make it the bloc's leading data centre provider. Beyond France and Greece, it also operates in Italy, Spain, Poland, and Germany.
The Peania data centre campus will be built on 75 acres of land. It is expected to be up and running by early 2027.
The group estimates that by 2030 it will have created more than 7,000 permanent jobs on its campuses in Europe and more than 500 permanent jobs on its Greek campus.
