Amazon Web Services (AWS) has revealed its plans for a new data center in Maintal, in the Hesse region of Germany.

Stretching over 10.6 hectares (26 acres), the site north of Frankfurt am Main will host two server facilities, a substation, and offices.

AWS said that up to 100 permanent jobs would be created at the new data center, though it did not reveal the facility’s compute capacity. DCD has approached AWS for comment.

The cloud computing giant’s new data center will be built as part of the company's $9.44bn investment in its Frankfurt region, as announced in 2024. The new facility will be powered directly by the grid and primarily cooled using recirculated air, reported Haunauer.de.

Water-based cooling systems may also be used in hot weather, the firm’s principal solutions architect, Thomas Blood, told residents at an information event held in the Bischofsheim community center, but 93 percent of the supply required will be derived from stored rainwater. Blood added that AWS’ servers require only 0.125 liters (0.03 gallons) per kWh, far less than the average of 0.8 liters per kWh.

AWS’ arrival in Maintal has attracted controversy, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine, with some residents criticizing local mayor Monika Böttcher for not exercising the municipality’s right of first refusal to prevent the cloud computing giant from acquiring the land for its new data center to begin with. Böttcher defended her inaction in this regard by stating that this power was, in the event, unenforceable, with AWS paying in excess of the €9 million ($10.4m) her office could have raised as an alternative bid to the landowner.

More controversial, however, have been the plans of data center operator EdgeconneX to build a gas-fired power plant to supply electricity to its new facility in the nearby Dörnigheim district.

The firm argued that such an investment was necessary given the excessive delay involved in hooking up its data center to the national grid. Protests from residents about the potential carbon emissions from the plant, however, have succeeded in temporarily halting construction work on the facility, according to Windmesse.

AWS launched its Frankfurt region back in 2014; it was the company's second European cloud region after Dublin. The company is also developing data centers outside Frankfurt in Schöneck and Maintal, in the Hesse region of Germany. AWS will invest "more than €1 billion" in the data center in Schöneck alone.

Learn more about the data center market in Switzerland and the wider DACH region, and meet with other executives and experts at the DCN Zurich event later this year.