Data centers are not much different from coal- or wind-fired power plants: most people want to take advantage of their services, but very few want them right outside their doorstep. Therefore, in addition to the current global debate about the risks of artificial intelligence, a local debate often also arises when it is decided to establish the necessary physical infrastructure for it somewhere.
Concerns are particularly growing in Europe. Many data centers are currently being built on the continent because many governments and companies prefer to store their data in Europe rather than in the United States, the world leader in computing. But digital sovereignty comes at a cost, which is consuming more European resources.
The intensity of the controversy surrounding this topic was evident a few days ago in London when the Australian company "Canva", which specializes in design services, presented a new tool based on artificial intelligence. A video clip from the presentation went viral not only showing the new AI products, but rather an activist shouting towards the stage: “You say your products are for people, but people are afraid of them. They are afraid when two-thirds of the country is in danger of drying out because of 500 connected data centers.” This accusation is supposed to refer to an analysis published by The Guardian according to which most of the artificial intelligence data processing centers planned for the United States will be built in areas at risk of severe drought despite their large water consumption.
According to an analysis conducted by DW, this topic has been receiving increasing attention on social media for a few months: in July, videos related to data centers around the world received more than 70 million views. Recently, about 40 percent of global clicks came from Europe, where only about 9 percent of the world's population lives.
During the hot, dry European summer, resource consumption becomes a major topic of discussion. In Germany, according to the Ministry of Economy’s record, each kilowatt-hour of electricity consumes between 0.4 and 4.4 liters of water on average, as this water evaporates or is returned to bodies of water after heating it for the purpose of cooling facilities. The summer that just ended in Europe was the hottest on record and local residents, the agricultural sector and even nuclear power plants were forced to restrict water consumption in some areas.
Many people in Europe are also concerned about the high electricity consumption in data centers. Finngrid, the Finnish electricity grid operator, recently published forecasts stating that electricity consumption in this Scandinavian country could rise by nearly 40 percent by 2025 if all new connections currently allowed to data centers are implemented.
The European Commission announced this week how water and energy consumption will be disclosed in the future: data centers with a capacity of more than 500 kilowatts will in the future receive certification that also takes into account energy efficiency measures such as closed circuit cooling or reuse of waste heat. “If we triple our computing power that should not mean tripling the pressure on our electricity grids, water supplies and energy bills as well,” said Teresa Ribera, Vice-President of the European Commission.
In the past, Europe's most efficient data centers were primarily located near large backbone nodes where the main links of the Internet's physical infrastructure converged. These nodes are located, among other places, near Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin and for this reason the abbreviation FLAP-D is commonly used in this sector.
However, an analysis conducted by the investment group CBRE indicates that this picture is changing: in the second quarter of 2026, 55 percent of the new agreed capacities of data centers were accounted for by sites outside the FLAP-D zone, such as the Dutch city of Groningen, the Belgian capital, Brussels, or the Spanish city of Barcelona.
But even away from major urban centers, the number of data centers is growing, and protests regularly break out, both online and offline. Google's highly advanced plans to establish a data center in the small Austrian town of Kronstorf have prompted several hundred demonstrators to take to the streets. In Ireland, best-selling author Sally Rooney continued to mobilize public opinion against a planned data center in the village of Killala until the national authorities withdrew its license based on Irish climate goals.
However, preparations for a huge project by Google with a capacity ranging between 800 megawatts and 1.1 gigawatts are still continuing in the village of Itrechet, located in central France, which is approximately equivalent to the electricity production of a nuclear power station when operating at full capacity. That is why, within a few days, the just-elected mayor, three deputies and one municipal councilwoman resigned. Mayor Florence Laurent expressed her regret at her inability to confront these plans in her municipality itself.
But there are also data centers in Europe that can be a role model for others, because they conserve resources. For example, a huge data center for artificial intelligence is currently being built in a central Internet node in the city of Marseille, which uses a closed water cycle for cooling. This is expected to reduce the energy needs for cooling by 30 percent.
Other projects go further: in Scandinavia in particular, as well as in Dublin, Frankfurt and Berlin, local or remote heating networks are fed with waste heat from servers. Thus, data centers heat hundreds of apartments and not only improve their energy efficiency. Last spring, the German electricity company Eon published survey results showing that nearly three-quarters of people would welcome the presence of data centers near residential areas provided that waste heat is fed into heating networks.
There are other possibilities to enhance climate sustainability and serve the public interest at the same time. In the Swedish city of Stackboe, as well as in Dublin, two Microsoft data centers have high-performance battery storage systems designated for power outages or peak times, which also contribute to the stability of electricity networks during normal operation.
