Submer is building a €1 billion ($1.14bn) AI data center at a former chemical factory in Catalonia.

The immersion cooling firm, which has recently expanded its operations into data centers and AI infrastructure, will build the facility on the site of the old Ercros plant in Flix, a town in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northern Spain.

It will be operated by Rubix Data Centers, Submer’s new AI data center division, which will aim to secure a single tenant to run AI workloads from the new facility.

The project was revealed on Saturday, July 11, at an event attended by the president of the government of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, and Miquel Sàmper, regional minister of business and labor.

Construction timelines and planned capacity of the data center have not been revealed, but Submer said it would be constructed in two phases. Renders appear to show four data halls arranged around a central building.

Patrick Smets, CEO of Submer, said: “As a European company, Submer Group is proud to be part of the reindustrialization of Flix, and the positioning of Spain as a leader in AI infrastructure development.

“The Flix site has notable industrial heritage, and it is where our vision for AI infrastructure can start to take shape. As demand accelerates, we will expand across the full stack, from land and power to cloud and Edge, and we are building where it creates the most lasting value. Returning this site to productive use, with durable infrastructure and long-term local partnerships, is exactly the kind of initiative we want to be known for.”

Industrial operations at the Ercros factory in Flix ceased in January 2023, though the chemical firm now operates a solar farm on the site.

Submer launched Rubix in June. The Barcelona-based company has been diversifying from its core cooling business in recent months, and launched an AI cloud platform, InferX, last year.

Rubix will develop and operate AI data centers, and claims to have 8GW of power available across vacant sites in the Americas, as well as the EMEA and APAC regions.

The company is headed up by former Stack executive John Eland, who said: “We intend to operate the facility we are building here, so we are not simply passing through Flix. Instead, we are committing to Flix for the long term, working alongside the local community and the administration, and creating skilled local jobs as the site returns to productive use.”