Data4 has broken ground on its new data center campus on the site of a former military base in Hanau, Germany.

Brookfield-owned Data4 plans to develop a 180MW campus at the site of the former Großauheim military base in Hanau, and held a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday.

The company purchased the 25-acre site in 2023, and says the campus will create several hundred jobs. It will invest up to €2 billion ($2.37bn) in the facility.

“The campus in Hanau, with its 180MW power capacity, is an important building block for the digital transformation of both the region and Germany as a whole,” said Hesse’s Minister for Digital Affairs, Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus. “Germany and Europe need to actively promote the further development of artificial intelligence. This can only be achieved if the necessary digital infrastructure is available to a sufficient extent – for example, through powerful data centers such as those being built here.”

The new campus will run on 100 percent renewable energy, and Data4 plans to construct a combined heat and power plant, along with an electrical substation. The company hopes to use waste heat from the data center to warm homes in the area, while materials from the old barracks will be reintegrated into the data center construction where possible.

“Germany is one of Europe’s leading countries when it comes to digital infrastructure, making it a strategically important market for us,” said Olivier Micheli, president and CEO of Data4.

“We want to develop the new campus in Hanau into one of the most powerful, sustainable, and innovative data center locations in Europe, and thus contribute to the digital future of the continent. This is just the beginning for us: we plan to further expand our presence in Germany to be the European datacenter champion, and open additional locations in the coming years.”

Data4 is currently in the midst of large investment programme bankrolled by Brookfield, which has pledged to spend €20 billion ($20.7bn) on AI infrastructure over the next five years, most of which will be funnelled through Data4 and into new facilities in France, where the company is based.