The new facility was delivered to Digital Reality, which owns more than 300 data centers worldwide. Credit: Bob Mical-CC2/Flickr
Greece is preparing to open its largest data center yet, amid a boom in global demand, driven largely by artificial intelligence (AI).
On Tuesday, the energy and industrial company Metlen said it had delivered the new facility to Digital Reality, which owns more than 300 data centers worldwide. Called Athens-3 (ATH3), the new center was built at an old industrial site in the town of Koropi, not far from Athens International Airport.
The 8,600 square meter facility offers cloud services and data storage and management, and will serve Greece, southeastern Europe, and beyond.
The rise of AI has spurred a race to build data centers that can provide the enormous computer power needed to train and use these models. In Europe, demand is projected to rise threefold by 2030, according to an analysis from McKinsey.
The data center in Greece: A foray into advanced technologies
In Greece, the launch of ATH3 represents the government’s latest foray into these advanced technologies.
“I have not hidden my ambition,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the inauguration of the ATH3 foundation in 2022. “In five years, the technology sector will contribute 10 percent to our country’s GDP.”
The ATH3 data center adds to Digital Reality’s existing facilities in Greece, including Athens-1 (ATH1), Athens-2 (ATH2), and Heraklion-1 (HER1).
However, the company is not Greece’s only player in this space. Late last year, the French firm DATA4 held a ceremony for its new campus in Peania, which is also east of Athens.
The ceremony, which was organized with the support of the Franco-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, took place two months after DATA4 announced an investment of more than €300 million ($349.8 million).