Stoneshield is to develop a large data center campus outside Santander in northern Spain.

The government of Cantabria this week announced investment firm Stoneshield and its XDC Properties subsidiary were planning a campus in the area.

The Altamira project will see €3.6 billion ($3.37bn) invested and over 637,000 sqm (6.8 million sq ft) developed in the Vipar Society industrial estate, across the municipalities of Piélagos and Villaescusa.

The campus will consist of 12 data center modules of 40MW each. It will reportedly be developed in three phases; the first 100MW phase is set to start work in January 2026 for a 2032 launch, while work on the next phases (totaling 500MW) will begin in 2028.

The site will also include ​​75,000 square meters (807,293 sq ft) of photovoltaic panels to supply renewable energy to the campus.

Cantabria is an autonomous community and province in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. Meta’s upcoming Anjana cable is set to land in Santander. The cable is due live this year.

The President of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, said the project will position the community “as one of the main technological hubs in Europe, on a par with Madrid, Milan, Frankfurt or London.”

Stoneshield Capital previously set up another data center firm, XData Properties, in 2021. Its portfolio consisted of a data center in the San Fernando de Henares area of Madrid bought from Spanish IT firm Indra in 2021 for a reported €40 million. Iron Mountain acquired XData and took over the site in November 2022.

On its website, XDC says it has up to 1GW of potential capacity across sites in Spain and Italy.

Beyond data centers, Stoneshield invested in student housing, life sciences, industrial storage, and residential assets.

Quark Engineering has been appointed technical advisor to XDC Properties for the project.