France’s Data4 begins building data centre in Greece
Source: NEOS KOSMOS
France’s Data4 on Tuesday began building one of two planned data centres in Greece, the French embassy said in a statement.
The project in Peania, east of Athens, to be completed by 2027, could be extended to four data centres, the embassy said.
The total investment for the first two centres is expected to reach 300 million euros ($318 million) and create some 500 jobs.
Data4 already operates 35 data centres in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland
“We are now a country friendly to foreign investment,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the data centre’s launch.
“We still have many steps to take to cover the investment gap separating us from the remaining European countries,” he added.
Greece is well-placed to offer “cheap clean energy” through solar and wind power to satisfy the heavy energy needs of data centres, without burdening its power grid, Mitsotakis said.
According to the inter-governmental International Energy Agency (IEA), the number of internet users worldwide has more than doubled since 2010, and global internet traffic has expanded 25-fold.
The agency says that estimated global data centre electricity consumption in 2022 was less than 2.0 percent of global final electricity demand.
But there is concern in some EU countries about energy usage, especially in small states.
The IEA notes that in Ireland, data centre electricity use has more than tripled since 2015, accounting for 18 percent of total electricity consumption in 2022.
It estimates that data centres and other non-industrial large energy users could account for 28 percent of national demand by 2031.
In Denmark, data centre energy use is projected to rise six times by 2030 to account for almost 15 percent of the country’s electricity use, the agency has said.
Source: AFP
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