Regional focus: 10-year data centre investment forecast for Aragon, Spain. Spain’s Aragon, in the north eastern part of the country, is emerging as one of Europe’s top locations for data centre investment thanks to streamlined permitting, available land, renewable energy and proximity to critical digital infrastructure, based on new reporting. US$ of data centre and digital infrastructure investment projected for Aragon over the next decade.
The key selling point for the area could be its way of getting big infrastructure projects off the ground. Aragon gives a status for qualifying developments called a Project of General Interest of Aragon, or PIGA. The programme aims to simplify planning and administrative processes, bulk approvals and even, in certain circumstances, accelerate land purchase and tax incentives. Projects that could take years to obtain European Planning permission can now be cleared in under 12 months.
That have prompted some of the biggest players in technology to go to along. Amazon Web Services is putting 33.7 billion in Aragon on cloud and AI hardware, making it the company’s biggest cloud investment of this kind anywhere but in the US. AWS has been building out infrastructure at sites in Villanueva de Gllego, Huesca, and Zaragoza for instance.
And, the technology giant is also establishing a majority stake in the area. Microsoft’s objectives are to deploy three demand-driven data centers in the form of campuses located in La Muela, Villamayor de Gllego and Zaragoza. To this end, the government of Aragon has declared them regional and general interest projects.
Ultimately it’s not the permits that will lure A.I. firms here. It’s Really Aragon boasts vast empty hectares and long-haul access to renewable power which is only more vital as pop-up A.I. ventures search for the computing horsepower they require. And it’s also geographically well-positioned for digital companies looking to connect their data centers and cloud clients to one another.
Overall, Spain is undergoing a swift buildout of data centers. As a Reuters report, Spain’s installed capacity in data centres “may climb some 300 percent to 3.9 GW by 2030”. Most of the announced buildout pipeline will be located in Aragon, Madrid, and Navarra, but the limit capacity of the electricity grid may increasingly define their geographical footprint.
But the fast pace is also causing concern. Some environmental organisations and other opponents have argued that the pace of approvals leaves less time for the public to scrutinise. After one Amazon project provided just 23 days for the public to look at some 25,000 pages of documents and raise concerns, an environmental non-governmental organisation has gone to court challenging the fast process, the Reuters newsagency reported as Spain’s “first legal action against a large data center project”.
Water and energy use are other issues. AI data centers can consume very large quantities of electricity and cooling infrastructure can strain water supplies. The Spanish central government is debating tighter rules on the use of resources, although regional authorities and companies that want to retain the pace of investment are resisting.