Source: Business Vlaanderen, September 2025
The exponential growth of AI is also literally changing our living environment, as more and more data centers are being built in Belgium. These large-scale IT infrastructure facilities are necessary to continue to meet the growing demand for data storage. At the same time, they consume a lot of energy. This sector is therefore investing in sustainability. “In fact, our sector is mainly challenged to become more transparent.”
The rapidly increasing demand for data centers in Belgium is a direct result of the explosive growth of AI and cloud applications. Belgium’s central location in Europe is leading to growing interest from abroad. For example, Google is building a new data center in Farciennes in Wallonia, and Microsoft is also planning to expand three centers in the Brussels suburbs. “In 2024, we achieved 10 percent growth in IT power for all Belgian data centers combined. For 2025, we expect growth of no less than 50 percent in storage capacity,” explains Carole Santens, Managing Director of the Belgian Digital Infrastructure Association (BDIA).
ENERGY DEMAND IS RISING
The fact that our country is considered attractive for these large-scale investments is mainly due to its available energy capacity. In the traditional hotspots for data centers—Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt—this has led to grid congestion. That is why Amsterdam recently decided that no new permit applications for data centers may be submitted until 2035. “Because demand for new capacity continues to grow strongly, we as an association are receiving more and more inquiries about the Belgian market,” says Santens.
This evolution will have a major impact on energy demand in our country in the coming years. According to a recent report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Belgian data centers will consume up to five times more electricity by 2035. In addition to energy, data centers also consume a lot of water to cool their equipment. The International Energy Agency estimates the global water consumption of data centers at around 560 billion liters of water per year. As a result of the AI race between the tech giants, this consumption is even expected to double by 2030.
A SECTOR IN FULL SWING
Globally, concerns are growing about the climate impact of data center growth. The sector itself points out that massive investments are being made in sustainability and that the results of this are already clear, certainly in Europe and Belgium. “New projects are designed according to the strictest applicable standards,” says Carole Santens. This means: as efficient and energy-efficient as possible, also in terms of water, and with reuse of the residual heat produced. “Sustainability is fully integrated into our strategy,” confirms Laurens van Reijen, CEO of the Belgian data center group LCL. “For example, we have invested in three of our own wind turbines and 9,300 solar panels. We don’t just limit ourselves to on-site solar panels. Four of our five data centers do not use water from the surrounding area, because we use air cooling and closed water circuits. Our fifth site will also be adapted in this way in the long term. The fact that we focus on sustainability is a very important argument for our customers to do business with us.”
Google echoes this sentiment. “In 2024, Google’s data centers delivered more than six times more computing power per unit of electricity than five years ago,” says spokesperson Michiel Sallaets. “Despite increasing energy demand, Google’s total energy emissions worldwide will have fallen by 12 percent in 2024.” He also points to the ambition to embed the company as much as possible in the local community. “This is the case, for example, with the data center in Farciennes, which is being built in such a way that it will be ready for heat recovery. Capturing heat from data centers in this way offers an opportunity for energy savings and a local contribution to the energy transition.”
SEIZING THE MOMENTUM
The central question in this story remains: will the efforts to become more sustainable prove sufficient to offset the climate cost of the explosive growth of this sector? Critics point in particular to the fact that the sharp rise in energy demand is hampering the global energy transition. At the same time, experts point to the significant efficiency gains that can still be achieved through technology. Carole Santens of BDIA: “As a sector, we are not blind to social concerns and we try to embrace them fully. In fact, we are mainly challenged to become more transparent.” Precisely in order to be able to communicate more proactively, LCL set up a neutral platform: Data Center University. “Our main aim here is to make knowledge and expertise available to society at large,” says Laurens van Reijen, who also points to the role of Europe. “Under the influence of European climate legislation, all players in the industry have signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, which stipulates that cloud infrastructure providers and data centers in Europe must be climate neutral by 2030.”
In short, although concerns about the climate impact of data centers worldwide are justified, the demand for additional infrastructure offers Belgian operators many opportunities to become even greener. “We can position ourselves as pioneers of sustainable data centers and thus further support European sovereignty. This is a shared responsibility of users, investors, companies, politicians, and network operators. We feel that everyone is on the same page in the field and therefore firmly believe in this vision for the future,” concludes Carole Santens.
