By Lucy Raitano
LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Oaktree Capital‑backed Pure Data Centres said on Monday it plans to invest up to 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in a new Amsterdam campus, one of Europe's largest hyperscale data‑centre commitments this year.
The company said the site will be leased to a single hyperscale cloud provider. Such companies are racing to expand AI infrastructure, with Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in 2025, according to filings.
"Having a hyperscale lease makes any deal noteworthy, but I think just the scale of this deal and the location, it's in quite a constrained location in the market," Dawn Childs, CEO of Pure Data Centres told Reuters, flagging an ongoing moratorium in Amsterdam that limits new data centre projects.
NEW LIFE FOR AMSTERDAM MARKET
Construction will begin in January 2026, with phased delivery expected from 2028. The campus will support AI or cloud workloads and be powered by a private substation, addressing Europe‑wide grid constraints.
"Pure DC's deal to let the announced 78 megawatts of capacity to a single hyperscaler tenant is remarkable as it breathes new life into what has been a staid Amsterdam data centre market over the past two years," said Kevin Restivo, head of data centre research, Europe, at commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE.
He said only 32 megawatts of new supply has been added in Amsterdam over the past two years, far less than in Frankfurt, Paris, London or Milan.
Pure DC's campus will be Amsterdam’s largest by power capacity, said Stijn Grove, head of the Dutch Data Center Association. The 78 MW planned represents about 7% of the 1,162 MW of new live capacity added in continental Europe in 2025, according to Savills, using DC Byte data.
Power capacity, measured in megawatts, is the key sizing metric for data centres.
"Hyperscaler demand is still strong for capacity in Europe," said Restivo. "That's what this deal signifies and that's also why it is remarkable."
FEW DEALS WITH HYPERSCALER LEASES
Many large European data‑centre projects have been announced this year, but Restivo said few hyperscaler leases have been signed similar to the Pure DC one.
Deals are often touted before power access, planning permission or customer commitments are finalised - a trend Childs said has led to the industry term "braggawatts".
"If anybody's looking into the market, I would strongly advise them to dig a bit deeper and understand whether it is just an announcement for the sake of an announcement or whether actually there is some gravity and reality behind those announcements," said Pure DC's Childs.
Pure DC is backed by U.S.-based asset manager Oaktree Capital Management, which had $218 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2025, according to its website. Oaktree is owned by New York-based Brookfield Asset Management, a unit of Brookfield.
($1 = 0.8516 euros)
(Reporting by Lucy Raitano in London; additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Amanda Cooper and Louise Heavens)
