Microsoft has announced plans to invest $10 billion starting early next year in a large-scale data centre in Portugal, dedicated to building advanced artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
The project is being developed in partnership with British firm Nscale, which specialises in AI data centres, and Start Campus, currently constructing a major facility near the southern port city of Sines. The centre will feature 12,600 of Nvidia’s latest-generation chips, making it one of the largest AI computing investments in Europe, according to Microsoft.
Speaking to Jornal de Negocios, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Portugal has become a “key European destination” for data centre development and investment. Smith is in Lisbon for the ongoing Web Summit, often referred to as the “Davos for geeks.”
The Sines facility, powered by renewable energy, will also serve as a crucial node connecting submarine telecommunications cables between the Americas and Europe.
Nscale’s Product Director Daniel Bathurst told AFP that demand for AI computing capacity has surged dramatically in recent months, describing it as “quite crazy.” For major players like Microsoft, he said, “it’s a race against time.”
“We have the expertise, we have access to the energy, and we can implement this for them on time,” Bathurst added on the sidelines of the Web Summit.
