Microsoft’s next European data centers will help AI tackle climate change issues, says the company

The data centers are designed to be sustainable and climate-friendly.

2 min. read

Published onFebruary 22, 2024

published onFebruary 22, 2024

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Microsoft will reportedly invest in more data centers and AI infrastructure in several more European countries after the Redmond-based tech giant recently announced investments of billions of dollars in AI and cloud technologies inGermanyandSpain.

These investments will be the construction of data centers in countries such as the UK, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Finland, and Austria, with Microsoft promising investments coming to more EU countries, as well.

The billions of dollars will not only go into the construction of data centers but also into updating countries’ infrastructure and modernizing them with AI and cloud technologies.

We previously speculated Microsoft’s investments in the continent might be the reason Europe could allow Microsoft AI technologies, such as Windows Copilot, to enter the region, and it seems this is indeed the company’s strategy:

These regions are the best place for new customers to begin their cloud journey, and for existing customers to grow their cloud footprint in Europe—with some of the best cost efficiencies and most comprehensive set of services. They will play a pivotal role in our European AI strategy, while continuing to meet European data boundary requirements.

Microsoft intends to build the European data centers as fully sustainable, and able to support zero carbon, water negative, and zero waste environments. The company agrees that these data centers themselves will be able to help AI tackle climate change issues.

Microsoft’s datacenters are designed to be sustainable and support our goals of being carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste. We believe AI will play a key role in tackling the climate crisis, and capabilities like Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability can help customers quantify carbon impact and measure optimizations.

Several of these data centers, especially the ones from Spain and Italy, will be ready to function in the next months, while the other ones will be built in the next year, or two, according to Microsoft.

They will be able to provide AI-specific computing levels to their local private and public sectors, as well, as eliminating the need to rely on distant, across-the-ocean data centers.

This infrastructure investment will help a need for efficient, scalable, and sustainable AI-specific compute power and the needs of the private and public sector waiting to take advantage of the latest cloud and AI breakthroughs.

More detailshere.

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Microsoft’s next European data centers will help AI tackle climate change issues, says the company