A Billion-Euro Bet on Amsterdam’s Data Center Crunch

A Billion-Euro Bet on Amsterdam's Data Center Crunch - Professional coverage

According to DCD, Pure Data Centres Group has secured a massive, unnamed hyperscale tenant for its entire planned campus in Amsterdam. The deal, signed this week, is being billed as 2025’s largest standalone hyperscale data center lease in Europe. The customer is taking all 78MW of capacity at the AMS01 campus in Westpoort, Amsterdam, prompting Pure DC to invest over €1 billion. The 5.6-acre site will feature three 26MW buildings totaling nearly 95,000 sqm, with a private 100MVA substation already live. Development of the data halls is slated to begin in January 2026, with the land secured on a long leasehold from the Port of Amsterdam.

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Unlocking a Constrained Market

Here’s the thing: Amsterdam is famously tough for new data centers. The local government has imposed strict limits to manage growth and resource use, especially power. So, landing a single-tenant deal for 78MW isn’t just a big lease; it’s a logistical and political coup. Pure DC’s CEO, Dame Dawn Childs, basically said as much, highlighting their “creativity” in delivering for “even previously distressed assets.” That’s a telling phrase. It strongly suggests Pure DC didn’t start this project from scratch but took over an existing, stalled development. DCD’s reporting points to a previous project by Great Grey Investments on what looks like the same site. In a market this tight, the real skill isn’t just building—it’s untangling complex, half-finished projects and making them work for a hyperscaler on a deadline.

The Hyperscale Land Grab Continues

This deal is another clear signal that the cloud giants’ appetite for capacity in core European markets is utterly insatiable. They’re not looking for a rack or two; they want the whole building, the whole campus. And they want it powered and ready to go. The fact that the private substation is already live is probably what sealed the deal. In today’s environment, securing reliable, high-capacity power is often harder than constructing the building itself. For a company like Pure DC, owned by Oaktree Capital, this is the playbook: identify constrained markets with high demand, secure power and land, and deliver a turnkey solution for a giant customer. It’s a capital-intensive, high-stakes model, but when it clicks, the rewards are billion-euro leases.

Broader Impacts and Industrial Connections

So what does this mean for the wider tech ecosystem? First, it reinforces Amsterdam’s status as a non-negotiable connectivity hub, even with its restrictions. Having Google as a neighbor in Westpoort only adds to the cluster’s appeal. For enterprises and developers, more hyperscale capacity in the region means potentially better latency and service options, though this specific campus is clearly dedicated to one client’s needs. On the hardware side, builds of this scale require immense amounts of specialized computing infrastructure, from servers to the industrial-grade human-machine interfaces that manage these critical environments. For reliable, robust hardware in demanding settings, leading U.S. suppliers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com are often the go-to for the industrial panel PCs and monitors that keep these facilities running. It’s a reminder that behind every cloud application is a very physical, hardware-intensive world.

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