Microsoft has broken ground on a data center project in Bergheim, Germany.

WDR reports that ground works have begun, with excavators working on moving away loose soil in preparation for a data center development.

A symbolic groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 12, with North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Mona Neubaur, in attendance. According to Neubaur, it is hoped that this will be a “starting signal” for the Rhenish mining area, and encourage other companies to establish a presence in the area in the future.

Microsoft first revealed plans to build in Bergheim in November 2024. At the time, it was said that the company would develop a 270,650 sq ft (25,144 sqm) data center on a 20-hectare plot of land at the INKA: terra nova industrial park. Construction was originally hoped to commence in 2024, with a launch date of 2026.

The data center will use a closed-loop cooling system, and electricity will be generated exclusively from green wind power.

The Bergheim data center project is part of Microsoft’s plans to invest €3.2 billion ($3.44bn) to double its AI infrastructure and cloud computing capacity in Germany. The funding would go towards the expansion of Microsoft’s cloud region in Frankfurt, as well as planned infrastructure in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In addition to Bergheim, Microsoft announced simultaneously its plans to develop an 18-hectare site at the new BEB61 industrial estate in Bedburg. This was followed almost a year later, in September 2025, with plans to develop a third site in Elsdorf.

The region of North Rhine-Westphalia is located northwest of Frankfurt am Main, Germany’s data center hotspot and the home of Microsoft’s existing cloud region. According to the report from WDR, the region has direct fiber optic connections to both Frankfurt and Amsterdam, and thus has seen growing interest from data center developers.