Europe pushes AI data centers 175 km from hubs

Europe’s next AI-scale data-center sites are moving farther from major hubs: JLL’s EMEA mid-year report says hyper-scale sites in the 2026–2028 pipeline average 175 kilometers from a hub city, versus 46 kilometers for projects delivered from 2022 to 2025. JLL also says greenfield sites rise from 8% to 39% of that pipeline as operators follow power and land, while more than half of Europe’s AI growth is expected in the Nordics and Tier 2 markets. Operators comparing AI power contracts that already require dedicated generation should treat location as a capacity decision: non-latency-sensitive training can trade proximity for electrons, but only where grid access is real.