Belgian IT services provider Cegeka is planning an initial €40 million ($46.9 million) investment to build a subterranean data center in Belgian Limburg.

As reported by The Interest of Limburg, the proposed data center would be the largest in Limburg and Cegeka’s eighth data center across Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy.

The data center will have an initial capacity of 4MW, four times the capacity of the largest data center in Limburg, which is also owned by Cegeka.

The company has plans to scale this to between 10MW and 15MW.

Cegeka said the data center investment is part of a response to the growing demand for compute capacity from AI applications and Europe’s perceived lag in the AI race.

Luc Greefs, head of data centers at Cegeka, told the Interest that the company wanted to build the data center underground to stave off threats from drones, sabotage, and cyber attacks, arguing that walls, cameras, and fences are less effective.

Last week, Cegeka also announced it was investing in renewable energy to “accelerate the transition to zero-emission cloud services.”

This includes the construction of its own wind turbine and procurement of energy from a newly built solar park in Belgium.

Cegeka said that these projects would “generate enough green electricity in 2026 to match the equivalent power consumption of Cegeka’s data centers, offices, and electric vehicles in Belgium and the Netherlands.”

“For an IT company like ours, data centers are major energy consumers. Running them entirely on green power is a huge step toward climate neutrality,” Greefs said. “Our customers want to know where their data is stored and under what conditions. By fully committing to climate-neutral infrastructure, we make it easier for them to report and to advance their own sustainability ambitions.”

He added: “With this strategy, we are taking a definitive step toward our goal: to offer fully climate-neutral cloud services from our data centers in Belgium and the Netherlands by 2030. It’s an investment that delivers tangible benefits for our customers – reliable and sustainable IT infrastructure – while contributing to the broader climate transition.”