Data4 owned by Canada-based Brookfield, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the use of Westinghouse Electric Company’s AP300 small modular reactor (SMR) to power future data centres in Europe.
Established in 2006 by Colony Capital (now DigitalBridge) and owned by Brookfield since April 2023, Data4 currently operates around 30 data centres in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Luxembourg. The company is set to invest some €20bn ($20.7bn) expanding in France over the next five years. Westinghouse has been owned 51% by Brookfield and 49% by Cameco since November 2023.
Under the agreement, Data4 will use the AP300 SMR as its technology of choice to evaluate deployment at one of its future data centres in Europe. “The data centre industry is undergoing a profound transformation. With the rise of AI, energy supply is evolving rapidly,” said Data4 CEO Olivier Micheli. “In the past, data centres relied solely on traditional power utilities. Today, we are entering an era where the campuses of the future will be powered by multiple intelligent sources, seamlessly integrating on-site generation, traditional grid supply, and energy storage.”
He added: “By integrating a solution such as the Westinghouse AP300 SMR, these campuses will gain greater energy autonomy, reducing their reliance on traditional grids and helping to alleviate pressure on public power networks. This marks a major step toward a more resilient, sustainable, and self-sufficient data center infrastructure.”
The AP300 SMR technology is based on Westinghouse’s larger AP1000 pressurised water reactor. Westinghouse says the AP300 SMR is expected to be in operation by the early 2030s. Westinghouse in 2024 signed an agreement with Community Nuclear Power Limited for the delivery of four AP300 SMRs to the North Teesside region of northeast England.
Major tech companies including Edged, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Sabey, Prometheus Hyperscale, Equinix, Switch, and others have signed deals to procure SMRs from various providers.
