Only one in five Euro datacenters are ready for AI, says BCS

"Only 20 percent of datacenters are considered AI-ready across Europe and the Middle East, despite the growing demand for infrastructure to accelerate AI processing. A report published by datacenter consultancy BCS says that AI-ready capacity in the region is limited, and there are a number of challenges facing the commercial property developers that want to build more, the biggest of which is a shortage of the right skills."

"The core issue? Most operational sites were designed for traditional enterprise or cloud workloads. Racks of power-hungry GPU servers demand far higher power densities, more robust cooling solutions, and greater operational resilience than these facilities were built to provide, BCS says. This means that while many sites may have sufficient overall capacity on paper, they lack the ability to deliver power at rack level or manage the sustained heat loads AI infrastructure generates."

Only 20 percent of datacenters across Europe and the Middle East are AI-ready, while demand for AI processing continues to grow. AI-ready capacity remains limited and projections expect facilities to rise to around 70 percent by 2030, but demand may still outpace infrastructure. Many operational sites were designed for traditional enterprise or cloud workloads and cannot meet the higher power densities, robust cooling, and operational resilience required by GPU-heavy AI racks. Numerous delivery constraints include land scarcity, materials and heavy equipment shortages, grid connection difficulties, and a lack of skilled staff. Data are drawn from over 3,000 industry respondents across 41 countries.

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