Mipim: Power constraints reshape Europe’s data centre investment landscape

Power shortages, planning delays and rapid technological change are reshaping how and where data centres are developed across Europe, industry leaders said during the session “Data Centres: Capital & Opportunity in Europe” hosted by Real Asset Media at Mipim 2026 in Cannes on Tuesday.

Panellists said access to electricity has become the decisive factor determining which projects move forward as demand from hyperscalers and AI-related operators continues to accelerate.

Lottie Tollman, head of data centres advisory, EMEA at Colliers, said investment patterns shifted over the past year as large cloud providers initially returned to established European markets.

“Beginning last year, we definitely saw a return to core in terms of investment, particularly from the hyperscale group, we call them, which is the Microsoft, Amazon, Googles of the world. And by that, I mean that they’ve returned to the safe havens of the FLAP-D markets, being from Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin,” she said.

However, limited grid capacity in those hubs is forcing developers to look beyond traditional locations.

“More recently, we’ve seen emerging markets and newer locations coming into play because the grids in those locations are now so constrained that we’ve seen an increasing amount of activity across Iberia, Central Eastern Europe, and for the same sort of reasons across the Middle East,” Tollman said.

Stephan Segbers, chief sales officer at RheinEnergie, said power availability has become a key bottleneck.

“Grid capacity, the scarcity constraints that we’ve seen, we know that location decisions more and more are depending on the availability of power, and we’re seeing, especially in the big European hubs like Frankfurt and London, that grid capacity is not available anymore,” he said.

“We often need to wait five, ten, or even more years until capacity is available, and that means that the players in the industry are now more and more looking towards onsite generation and understanding what is the time to power.”

Rennie Dalrymple, partner at Ridge and Partners, a built environment consultancy specialising in property development, said rapidly changing technology also creates challenges for developers. “End customer specs, they’re just evolving all the time,” he said. “It’s a real challenge to blend that with what goes into the built assets.”