IREN, the Nasdaq-listed operator of AI data centers, has founded a European subsidiary and named its first project: an AI campus of about 300 MW in Badajoz, in the Extremadura region of western Spain. The company announced it on 21 October at NVIDIA GTC Berlin and says it has secured grid-connected power and the civil works license for the site. First operations are targeted for 2028.
Bought With The Developer
The site came with Nostrum Group, a Spanish data center developer IREN bought in June. ForkLog reports that the acquisition gave IREN access to about 490 MW of grid-connected capacity in Spain; Badajoz is the first project to come out of it. The Nostrum team of more than 60 people is led by Gabriel Nebreda as chief executive of IREN Spain.
The new European board is chaired by Ángel Corcóstegui, a former chief executive of Banco Santander, and Roberto Purcaro, previously at Macquarie Capital, joins as executive director for Europe. IREN says it is still consulting local, regional and national authorities as the project goes forward. No investment figure has been published.
- Planned capacity: about 300 MW, on a site IREN describes as compatible with NVIDIA's DSX AI Factory platform.
- Cooling: closed-loop liquid cooling, which the company says needs very little water.
- Business model: AI cloud and managed services for customers who need their data kept in Europe.
Why Extremadura
Western Spain is not where most people would have looked for a large data center ten years ago. What it has is space and, in this case, a grid connection already in hand, which in much of Europe is the hardest thing to get. Analysts have warned how far data centers could push electricity demand in markets such as Ireland; developers are moving to where the connection exists.
The climate is the other side of the bargain. Summers in the Guadiana valley are long and hot, and closed-loop cooling with little water means the heat goes into the air, so the equipment on the roof and in the yard is sized for the hottest afternoons. The same applies to the backup generators that a campus of this size will need: their rating has to hold at the temperatures the site actually sees, not only on the data sheet. More on data center applications.
Sources: Blackridge Research (IREN release), ForkLog
