By Toby Sterling<\/p>\n
AMSTERDAM, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Nebius, the Amsterdam-based AI cloud services firm, said on Thursday it is planning to build a new \u200c240-megawatt data centre in B\u00e9thune, near Lille in France, that will be \u200cone of Europe\u2019s largest when it is finished.<\/p>\n
The build-out comes as a wave of European companies – \u200bparticularly in manufacturing, services and logistics – begin deploying AI tools<\/a>.<\/p>\n The project, a redevelopment of a former Bridgestone tyre plant, is expected to begin delivering capacity in phases, with the first online by late summer and roughly half the site operational by the \u200cend of 2026, Nebius Chief \u2060Communications Officer Tom Blackwell said.<\/p>\n Separately, Nebius reported a wider fourth-quarter loss despite a leap in revenue as it spends heavily on \u2060expanding capacity to meet booming AI demand.<\/p>\n Nebius, along with Coreweave in the United States, is one of the top “neocloud” firms, gaining prominence by striking high-profile deals to supply AI \u200binfrastructure \u200bto U.S. hyperscalers, including a $17 billion deal \u200bwith Microsoft<\/a> and a $3 billion deal \u200cwith Meta.<\/p>\n It says those deals are helping fund its longer-term vision of offering AI services to diverse business customers – it currently serves predominately startups, AI firms and digital-focused companies such as Mistral, Shopify and ServiceNow.<\/p>\n Blackwell said that while the U.S. remains its biggest market, it made “absolute sense” for Nebius to have a footprint in Europe \u200cas an increasing number of firms on \u200bthe continent use AI.<\/p>\n Nebius did not disclose the \u200bcost of the B\u00e9thune project.<\/p>\n Real estate \u200bservices firm CBRE estimates development and construction costs for an \u200cAI data centre at $10-$14 million per megawatt, \u200bimplying $2.4-$3.6 billion for \u200ba 240-megawatt facility.<\/p>\n