Data4 has confirmed plans for a €5 billion ($5.8bn), 700MW, data center at a former steelworks in northern France

The Brookfield-owned developer will build the campus, which it says will be its largest data center to date, in the city of Escaudain, in the Hauts-de-France region. Located at the Soufflantes industrial park, the data center will be built on the site of the former Usinor steel factory.

DCD reported in December that Data4 had been selected by La Communauté d’Agglomération de La Porte du Hainaut, the local authority, to lead a feasibility study into building a data center on the land, which has been vacant for 45 years.

“We are delighted to bring our project to life in the Hauts-de-France region, a highly strategic area and a major connectivity and communication hub for Europe,” said Olivier Micheli, Data4 CEO.

“With the support of national and regional authorities and La Communauté d’Agglomération de La Porte du Hainaut, we will be able to revitalize this territory through the digital industry and build the sovereign, sustainable, and competitive infrastructures that France and Europe so urgently need.”

Data4 said further studies and preliminary construction work will take place over the next year. Following the initial data center building on the site, another four could be added, but the company has not put timescales on construction or revealed the capacity of the first phase of the development.

The land was identified by the French government as one of 35 turnkey sites available for the development of data centers in France, with a fast-track power grid connection available via the RTE network.

Aymeric Robin, Mayor of Raismes and President of La Communauté d’Agglomération de La Porte du Hainaut, said: “With this major data center campus project dedicated to artificial intelligence, we aim to erase the last remnants of an industrial era and open a new, more technological chapter.

“We will support this transformation so that our residents can benefit from these job opportunities and new prospects, including in professions that rely on these new technologies, such as healthcare, services, or security. This is about shaping a region and its people for the jobs of tomorrow,” declares “This win-win collaboration addresses the challenges of modernity, security, and the development of a new era that will create wealth for our community.”

France has been making concerted efforts to become Europe’s capital of AI infrastructure. DCD wrote an in-depth feature on the French AI data center build-out in Issue 57 of the magazine. News of the development was welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron. Writing on LinkedIn, he said: “This is the result of Choose France: reindustrializing, training, innovating and promoting our territories.”

Data4 was established back in 2006 by Colony Capital (now DigitalBridge) and has been owned by Brookfield since April 2023. The company currently operates more than 30 data centers in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany, and Greece, totaling around 1.5GW.

Last year, Brookfield announced it was investing €20 billion ($20.7bn) in French digital infrastructure over the next five years, most of which will be funneled through Data4. The company could develop another hyperscale campus in northern France, on a former air force base at Cambrai.