Developing data center projects in any territory requires a combination of industry experts and young talents in areas as varied as real estate development, engineering finance, HR, or organization.

In order to be competitive, one will need to focus first on real estate development: identifying future strategic data center sites, securing power and building permits, thus giving a strong basis to allow a gear shift, then stepping up into the next phases of datacenter development from the off-market site identification, power and building permit securing, to leasing, financing, building and operating highly efficient AI-ready datacenters in key data center hubs.

Further to all the data center development phases described above, the trick will also be to have the team able to navigate projects through key phases such as land acquisition, power supply, contractualization, building permitting, and any further administrative authorizations required.

For this the teams will require a precise knowledge of local business customs, rules, and regulations, thus evolving in a global environment whilst mastering very pragmatic and local challenges.

Germany

If we look at Germany specifically, the trends are evolving. Frankfurt is still a hotspot but the radius around Frankfurt-am-Main is broadening. We see new data center hubs popping up across Germany, not only due to power availability but also because some new applications in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are not so latency-sensitive.

Berlin starts challenging Frankfurt, Munich, or the Nord-Rhein-Westfalen area (Cologne/Düsseldorf) are growing as data center hubs. Some of these locations have additionally skyrocketed by hyperscale investment announcements.

Why is Germany still a promised land for data center investment? Safe and secure infrastructures, political stability, one of the largest populations within the EU and one of the leading economies, a stable currency within the Euro-zone, high connectivity in Germany inbound and outbound, with pioneers such as DE-CIX, the world’s leading internet exchange, and as always with Germany, a high level of legal and cultural protection around data privacy (so-called DSGVO).

The power infrastructure is one of the factors leading to geographic diversification in Germany. The Government seems to be willing to make efforts to support our booming industry and welcome these massive investments to the Federal Republic.

Professional Associations such as the Eco Association or the GDA German Data Center Association are doing a tremendous amount of work to bring the different parties together and promote the industry.

But according to our experience, on some key parts of the new challenges coming together with the data center's exponential growth – such as ESG – we felt there was a missing catalyst in the market.

Some topics are so complex that they require open cooperation across the industry. Bringing the parties together is in my opinion a necessity if we want to progress on the ESG side and tackle energy efficiency and carbon reduction.

ESG

The data center industry is indeed schizophrenic with skyrocketing growth and power consumption, and the urge to reduce environmental impact and carbon footprint. ESG has become a priority to the whole industry. Some carbon reduction goals are meanwhile translated into laws or regulations.

So developing sustainable data centers in Germany: a myth or a reality?

The various aspects such as heat recovery, energy efficiency, or integration in the community, require cooperation across the parties involved, across the traditional barriers. Technical innovation can also happen only out of the box.

As iMasons came up I thought it was a great initiative, bringing the key players of the industry together to tackle the new challenges and put a lot of focus on the next generation, aiming at supplying our industry with future talents.

When the ICA iMasons Climate Accord initiative came up, to me it filled up that gap of bringing the parties together and emulating cross-industry cooperation in order to reduce the impact of the business on the environment.

This is the reason why we chose to join the collective ICA effort.

Quoting the ICA's Miranda Gardiner: “At the ICA, our role is a catalyst for collaboration across all players in digital infrastructure – facilitating the exchange of knowledge, best practices, and innovative solutions that drive sustainability and emissions reductions.

"The main challenges we encounter include aligning diverse interests, supporting and meeting regulatory requirements, balancing demand needs with sustainable solutions, and ensuring both scalability and accessibility. In line with the topic of this article, Germany's strong commitment to climate action, renewable energy, and policy frameworks has set a benchmark that encourages industry leaders, as well as other countries, to accelerate their climate goals.”

Today modern data center development requires ESG to be at the core of every new project.

It even starts as early as during the site selection phase, because the location will define a lot of the possibilities in terms of heat recovery schemes, help connect with the Municipalities or industrial neighbors, integrate with the community and local population, and help each other reciprocally reach their ESG targets.

On the engineering side, it is strongly advised to implement all solutions possible as far as economically viable to maximize the energy efficiency of upcoming data center projects and reduce the carbon footprint while strengthening the reliability aspect: for example, hybrid design with a combination of water cooling for AI or HPC loads and air cooling for classic IT load densities; heat recovery scheme, green facades, modular construction, use of local suppliers, low-emission construction materials photovoltaic panels.

In Germany, data center developers also have to manage not only the usual building permit submission locally but also the German environmental permit (BimSchG), which takes an always closer look at technical design and emissions.

Future-solid data center projects will target certifications as high as Tier 3 according to Uptime Institute for commercial use (the Tier norm is essential for international customers), and/or EN50600 (meanwhile fundamental for large Enterprises customers). It even makes sense to strive for a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification for the data center building.

So, to answer the question, yes, it is feasible to develop sustainable data centers in Germany, but it requires a lot of effort and it comes with its own set of challenges. And a cooperative approach is a must.

We are in a fascinating and extremely fast-paced evolving environment and mean to bring our contribution to the evolution of the industry.

Learn more about Data Center Partners here.