Dutch AI data center company Volt has announced the development of an “AI Gigafactory” in Rotterdam.

The company said the data center, which will be built on a site at the Port of Rotterdam, will offer “compute at industrial scale and strengthen Europe’s position in the global AI economy.”

Volt launched last year and is leading the Dutch bid to host one of the European Union’s 300MW AI gigafactories, five supercomputing clusters that will be built across the continent to boost European compute power. The company said it has the support of the Dutch government and a coalition of private sector partners to develop and launch the gigafactory.

“AI is no longer just a technology trend, it is becoming a foundational layer of our economy,” said Han de Groot, CEO of Volt. “And like any industrial revolution, it depends on infrastructure. In the case of AI, that infrastructure is compute.”

According to Volt's press release, the AI Gigafactory will run on “North Sea wind energy.” The company told DCD the site already has a high-voltage grid connection, and is being developed in partnership with Dutch energy company Eneco, which will potentially supply the data center from its North Sea offshore wind portfolio. Eneco also offers natural gas power to its clients, as well as operating solar farms.

Volt said planned capacity for the data center is up to 800MW, "to be developed in phases in line with customer demand and project progression." Construction could start in 2027, depending on "project development milestones and customer commitments" being met.

“Today, most of Europe’s AI runs on infrastructure built and operated outside of Europe,” added de Groot. “That is not just a technology gap, it is a strategic vulnerability. With the Rotterdam AI Gigafactory, we are building the foundation for Europe to become an AI maker, not just an AI taker.”

Volt launched with an initial 14MW of capacity to its customers from Switch Datacenters’ AMS4 facility in Amsterdam, and has identified five other projects it hopes to pursue, including the Rotterdam site.

It plans to take 42MW space in a new Switch data center, likely the company’s AMS5 facility that is currently under construction at a site four miles outside Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, Volt is embarking on a joint venture with Switch in Poland, to take between 30-100MW of space at a data center Switch is planning near Warsaw. This was announced in 2025, with a targeted capacity of 90MW, and building work is due to commence this year.

Further afield, it said it plans to take 400MW of space at a data center currently under development in Dallas, Texas, but did not name the site in question. It said it is also in discussions about a 129MW project in the UAE, but again did not go into specifics.

De Groot was a co-founder of Switch, and is head of the De Groot Family Office wealth management firm.