EU plans to triple data center capacity by decade’s end amid growing local protests

The European Commission wants to triple the EU’s data center capacity within the next five to seven years, a buildout that would require roughly €200 billion in mostly private investment and push total power capacity from around 12 GW to more than 27 GW. The plan is bold, expensive, and increasingly unpopular with the people who’d have to live next to all that humming hardware. Through the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, known as CADA, and the broader AI Continent Action Plan, Brussels is betting that massive infrastructure spending can close the gap with the US and China in artificial intelligence. The numbers behind the buildout EU data centers currently consume approximately 68 TWh of electricity per year. By 2030, that figure is projected to climb to roughly 114 TWh, a jump of nearly 68%. For context, data centers accounted for about 2% to 2.5% of the EU’s total electricity consumption in 2024. That share is expected to grow meaningfully by the end of the decade as AI workloads multiply. A proposal introduced on September 21, 2026, would create a transparency rating system for data centers exceeding 500 kW of capacity. The framework would evaluate energy efficiency, wast...