A German start-up is planning to build a 30-megawatt artificial intelligence data centre in Bavaria, in what would mark a significant addition to Germany’s domestically operated computing infrastructure at a time when European governments are placing greater emphasis on control over critical technology assets.
Polarise told Reuters that the facility is to be built in the town of Amberg and is expected to come online in mid-2027. The company said the site could later be expanded to 120 megawatts, which would place it among the larger data centre developments in Germany.
The project comes as European countries seek to reduce dependence on foreign-controlled digital infrastructure amid a wider debate about technological sovereignty. That debate has intensified in recent years due to geopolitical tensions, trade disputes, armed conflict, and differences in the regulatory treatment of online content and data governance.
According to figures from the German digital industry association Bitkom, AI data centres in Germany had a total capacity of 530 megawatts at the end of last year. However, much of that capacity was operated by non-German providers. Against that background, the planned Polarise development would represent a substantial increase in locally controlled computing power.
Reuters reported that the 30-megawatt facility alone would effectively double Germany’s domestically run AI computing capacity. If the project were later expanded to 120 megawatts, its scale would become more comparable with the larger facilities typically operated by major international technology companies.
Large US technology groups such as Google and Amazon Web Services usually run data centres with capacities of around 100 megawatts or more. Polarise’s plans therefore suggest an ambition to move beyond the smaller scale often associated with European start-ups and into a more strategic segment of digital infrastructure.
The plans for the Amberg site had not previously been reported. Polarise, which operates 13 data centres in Germany and abroad, declined to give detailed figures for the overall investment required. The company said final costs would depend heavily on the commercial model adopted by customers and on the extent to which they choose to install their own servers or rent computing capacity directly.
Marc Gazivoda, Polarise’s marketing director, told Reuters that the company had not received state subsidies for the project. He added that the eventual level of investment could vary according to customer demand and deployment decisions.
A source close to the company said the initial stage of the project would cost in the “triple-digit million euro range”. That estimate includes the main infrastructure, though not the semiconductors themselves. The source said final expenditure would depend in part on the number of chips required and on the specific types selected for AI workloads.
The cost of AI infrastructure has become a central issue in Europe’s effort to strengthen domestic capacity. Building data centres designed for AI applications requires not only land, energy supply and cooling systems, but also access to high-performance chips, which remain expensive and globally concentrated in terms of supply.
The scale of such investment was illustrated by Polarise’s recent project in Munich. A 12-megawatt data centre opened by the company there last month was estimated by Deutsche Telekom to have cost 1 billion euros. Reuters said that facility had already doubled Germany’s existing locally operated AI data centre capacity, underlining how limited domestic capacity has been to date.
Energy is likely to remain one of the most closely watched aspects of the new Bavarian project. AI data centres are highly power-intensive, and their growth has raised wider questions about electricity demand, energy pricing and sustainability. With oil prices having risen above $100 a barrel, the broader cost of energy has become an increasingly important factor in the economics of large-scale data infrastructure.
Polarise said its partner, WV Energie, would install a wind and solar power plant to serve the centre, along with battery storage for temporary electricity balancing. The use of dedicated renewable generation and battery capacity is likely to be presented as a way of limiting exposure to energy price volatility while also addressing concerns over the environmental impact of AI-driven power demand.
The project reflects a broader European tension between technological ambition and structural dependency. Policymakers across the continent have called for greater control over cloud services, data processing and AI infrastructure, yet much of the market remains dominated by large non-European providers with deeper capital resources and established scale.
In that context, Polarise’s Amberg development is notable not only for its planned size but also for what it represents politically and strategically. A successful rollout would provide Germany with a larger share of AI computing capacity under domestic operation, at a moment when governments and businesses are reassessing the resilience of critical infrastructure.
