Can Europe Build Data Centers Without Giving Up Its Climate Goals?

Earlier this year, the German government laid out an ambitious plan: By 2030, it would double the scale of the country’s data center fleet, and quadruple the amount of compute available for running artificial intelligence models. The idea was to minimize Germany’s dependence on the United States for access to AI—a point of concern across Europe—and boost its faltering economy.

However, Germany has found that its AI ambitions are butting up against its climate commitments. EU member states have committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by the end of the decade. But policies meant to help meet that target are interfering with attempts to trigger a data center building frenzy.

As part of its broader climate commitments, the previous German administration voted through the Energy Efficiency Act in 2023. Among other things, it required all new data centers to recycle a portion of the waste heat generated by their computer equipment, ideally into nearby municipal heating systems. It seemed like a no-brainer, says Patrick Graichen, who served as a senior official at Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy at the time, before resigning over cronyism allegations.

“We need clean heat, and data centers are a source of clean heat,” Graichen tells WIRED.

In June, a month before the rules were due to finally take effect, the German federal government walked them back. Data center firms had complained that the requirements made it almost impossible to build in the country; the German Data Center Association characterized an early version of the bill as a “data center prevention act.” Under an amended bill, which will be put to the German parliament for ratification imminently, data center operators would no longer be obligated to reuse waste heat, only to scope out the possibility.

The German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy did not respond to a request for comment.