Where are the AI datacenters in the Netherlands?

The Netherlands: datacenter capital of Europe

The Netherlands hosts more datacenter capacity per capita than almost any other country in the world. The reason: Amsterdam is home to AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange), one of the largest internet exchange points on earth. Being closer to AMS-IX means lower latency — and that is crucial for AI services.

Other advantages: good fibre optic infrastructure, political stability, an English-speaking business culture and — at least historically — reasonably affordable land and energy.

Amsterdam and surroundings: the core

The largest concentration of datacenters is in and around Amsterdam:

• Equinix Amsterdam — the largest colocation datacenter network in the Netherlands. Multiple locations (AM1–AM11+) in and around Amsterdam.
• Digital Realty (Interxion) — multiple large datacenters in Amsterdam (AMS1–AMS15).
• NTT Global Data Centers — multiple locations in the Amsterdam region.

Middenmeer (North Holland): hyperscalers

The polder around Middenmeer has grown into one of the most remarkable datacenter locations in Europe:

• Microsoft — has an enormous datacenter campus in Middenmeer. One of the primary locations for Azure services in the EU.
• Google — has also built a large datacenter in Middenmeer.

Eemshaven (Groningen): Google's northern hub

Google has built one of its largest European datacenters in the Eemshaven. The datacenter consumes hundreds of megawatts.

Odijk (Utrecht): Meta's Dutch hub

Meta has built a large datacenter campus in Odijk. The datacenter processes data from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for European users, among others.

The moratorium in North Holland

In 2019 Amsterdam imposed a moratorium on new large-scale datacenters due to pressure on the electricity grid, space and water.

Problems with the electricity grid

The rapid growth of AI datacenters has caused grid congestion. Liander and TenneT cannot keep up with demand.