Study: Germany falling behind in AI data centre expansion

Germany is lagging far behind other countries in the expansion of data centres to power technological advancements like artificial intelligence (AI), the digital association Bitkom said on Monday.

Bitkom predicts that Germany’s total installed data centre capacity will grow by 60% to more than 5,000 megawatts by 2030.

The association expects that the US will more than double its data centre capacity to 95,000 megawatts by 2030. China is also planning a rapid expansion.

Europe as a whole is projected to increase capacity by around 70% to 28,000 megawatts over the same period.

In Germany, computing power required for AI is set to quadruple by 2030, rising from the current 530 megawatts to 2,020 megawatts – roughly 40% of the total data centre power – Bitkom said.

The country’s energy requirements stood at 21.3 billion kilowatt hours this year, which is almost double the figure from a decade ago.

Bitkom said around two-thirds of the projected electricity demand from data centres comes from IT infrastructure, which includes servers, storage and network technology. The remaining third is accounted for by cooling and the need for uninterrupted power supply.

The association emphasized that energy efficiency will become increasingly important as demand from AI and other computer applications grows.

To address the widening gap with international competitors, Bitkom urged German lawmakers to present concrete measures as part of its planned data centre strategy.