Nebius signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Volt for data center capacity in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, leasing from the 'AI Gigafactory' in the Port of Rotterdam.
AI cloud company Nebius has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Volt for data center capacity in the Netherlands. Under the agreement, Nebius will be the first offtaker at Volt's planned "AI Gigafactory" in Rotterdam.
Volt announced plans for its AI data center in Rotterdam in April of this year, stating that it would offer "compute at industrial scale and strengthen Europe's position in the global AI economy."
The data center was previously said to offer up to 800MW, but Volt now describes it as a 600MW campus with six buildings. The first phase will develop two 100MW data centers, with a total investment of approximately €7 billion ($7.8bn). This is broken down into €2.5bn ($2.8bn) for construction and €4.5bn ($5bn) for compute hardware.
According to Volt, the AI data center will bring together specialized "computers, electricity, cooling, data storage, and fast connections." Customers can purchase access to that computing power via a cloud platform.
Under the LOI, Nebius plans to purchase capacity from the site. According to the companies, the "precise setup and agreements concerning the computer equipment" will be worked out at a later date.
"We want Europe to be successful on the global stage," said Arkady Volozh, CEO of Nebius. "As we continue to build out trusted AI infrastructure around the world, we are supporting the Rotterdam AI Gigafactory and working with leading Dutch entrepreneurs to strengthen the Netherlands' independent AI capacity."
Volt, which launched in 2015, is leading the Dutch bid to host one of the European Union's 300MW AI gigafactories, five supercomputing clusters that will be built across the continent to boost European compute power.
Volt founder and CEO Han de Groot noted that the project demands a significant amount of energy. "The concerns about electricity are justified. Our starting point is to use electricity from offshore wind farms, close to where it comes ashore in the port of Rotterdam. In doing so, we bring electricity demand to the energy source. That limits transmission inland over the overcrowded electricity grid."
Energy for the data center is being supplied by Eneco.
Rotterdam is a major port city in South Holland, located around 57km (35 miles) from Amsterdam as the crow flies.
Like many neoclouds, Nebius has been rapidly seeking to expand its compute capacity. Earlier this month, the company signed a 50MW lease agreement with AIB Data Centers in the US. In Europe, Nebius has capacity either operating or under development in Finland, the UK, France, Estonia, Iceland, and Spain.