The US investor Blackstone is planning to invest billions in a data center in Lippetal, Westphalia.
As the American company announced, a purchase agreement was signed for a property in an industrial area. According to financial circles, the project size is around four billion euros; The facility is not expected to be completed until the early 2030s.
The plan is not yet in the clear: the contract only comes into force when certain conditions are met. The planning process should begin soon. The data center will be used for cloud services and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The project will be carried out by the data center developer Quality Technology Services (QTS) – this company is owned by Blackstone. QTS has already built several data centers in the USA as well as a location in the Netherlands, and one is under construction in Great Britain. According to the company, the systems built by QTS are operated by US companies such as Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft.
“Strengthening our location in the long term”
“We believe that Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia in particular are attractive locations for the development of state-of-the-art data centers,” says Blackstone manager James Seppala. “We look forward to working with all stakeholders, including local people, as the approval process progresses.”
The project was presented to residents at an information event. “With this possible investment we are strengthening our location in the long term,” says Lippetal Mayor Tobias Nillies (CDU). The mayor of Hamm, Marc Herter (SPD), sees the project as evidence of the region’s innovation potential. Herter is chairman of the supervisory board of the company Industriegebiet Westfalen GmbH, which operates the industrial area.
Energy supply was the decisive factor
According to information from the “Westfälischer Anzeiger”, the energy supply was crucial for the Hamm/Lippetal location for the investors: there is already enough electricity available here, Blackstone manager Britta Harper told the newspaper. And in the foreseeable future, green electricity will also be available there. A high-voltage line from the network operator Amprion is to end on the former RWE power plant site in Westphalia, via which green electricity will be carried from the North Sea to Westphalia.
If the project is actually implemented, it would be one of the largest data center investments in Germany. Microsoft is spending several billion euros on two locations in the Rhenish district west of Cologne. The Schwarz Group, parent company of Lidl and Kaufland, announced an eleven billion euro investment in a new data center in Lübbenau in the Spreewald, Brandenburg, last year.
Blackstone shares were temporarily trading 1.69 percent higher at $161.39 on the NYSE on Thursday.
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