Foreword

Andrew Fettes-Brown

Service Transformation Director Rider Levett Bucknall andrew.fettes-brown@uk.rlb.com

"As projects grow in scale and complexity, success will depend on industrialising delivery, strengthening collaboration and treating energy and supply chains as strategic priorities. The advantage belongs to those who can deliver with certainty.”

The future of Europe’s AI infrastructure will not be defined by ambition alone. The winners will be those who can deliver.

Europe is at the cusp of a new infrastructure construction cycle. Demand for new and more powerful data centre capacity to fuel the AI revolution is no longer theoretical. It is real and the foundations are being laid today.

And, after a year of recalibration, the sector is getting ready to accelerate the build-out of these foundations.

Based on insights from 700 senior decision-makers across data centre operators and construction contractors in the UK and Europe, alongside in-depth interviews with five industry subject-matter experts, this year’s Data Centre Trends Report reveals a sector bracing for rapid growth. Data centre operators expect to commission 42% more capacity in 2026 than in 2025, it shows – a staggering 319% increase since just 2023.

The demand drivers are clear. AI workloads are reshaping power density requirements. Hyperscalers and neocloud providers are advancing ambitious expansion programmes. Investor appetite for digital infrastructure remains strong, although capital is increasingly delivery focused. And across Europe, markets beyond the traditional FLAP-D core are rising in prominence as operators pursue power availability, permitting viability and long-term sustainability.

Yet the defining challenge of 2026 is not demand. It is execution.

The structural challenges the sector must overcome are well-understood: limited access to power, permitting delays and renewed pressure on materials, equipment and specialist labour. And all are intensifying as AI-driven demand feeds through the ecosystem.

The energy conundrum – meeting ever growing demand for power density, even as scrutiny of the sector’s sustainability increases – calls for structural changes in project delivery. Negotiating private power arrangements and exploring co-location with generation or storage assets are no longer optional innovations: they are commercial imperatives. Fortunately, given grid constraints and rising energy costs, these strategies also align with the need to manage costs and build energy security.

At the same time, the scale and complexity of projects is increasing risk concentration. Delivery delays now carry material financial and reputational consequences, but larger, more power-dense and more bespoke facilities place greater reliance on a narrower band of suppliers and contractors.

Fortunately, the sector is maturing. Collaboration and risk-sharing across the ecosystem is strengthening; standardisation and modular designs are gaining traction; and information management practices are improving coordination and predictability. But there still ample room for improvement on all fronts.

The organisations that succeed will be those that industrialise delivery. That means investing in data-driven site selection to reduce power and permitting risk. It means embedding information management throughout the lifecycle of an asset. It means approaching energy strategy with creativity. It means balancing flexibility and standardisation in design. And it means treating supply chain management as a strategic discipline, not a transactional function.

The growth of Europe’s data centre sector is not in doubt, but the battle to capture the opportunities is intense – and becoming ever more so. The advantage belongs to those who can deliver with certainty.