🇧🇪 Belgian Data Center Watch
Who is using our land, water & energy — and what it costs us
Sovereignty AlertOver 75% of Belgian data center capacity is operated by US corporations subject to the CLOUD Act, PATRIOT Act, and FISA — meaning US authorities can legally demand access to data stored on Belgian soil. No data stored with a US-headquartered company is fully protected from US government access.
Data Centers in Belgium
35+
↑ +5 planned/under construction
CBRE 2025 — 207 MW IT load
Foreign-Operated Share
~75%
↑ US Hyperscalers 55% + US Colo 20%
By capacity (MW)
Current DC Energy Demand
3 TWh
↑ 4% of national demand
BCG 2025 estimate
Grid Connection Requests
10×
↑ Since 2022 — Elia 2025
Reserved >2× the 8 TWh grid plan
Market Value (2024)
$1.83B
↑ → $3.1B by 2030 (CAGR 9.1%)
Research & Markets
2035 Demand (high)
15.5 TWh
↑ 10%+ national electricity
BCG 2025 high scenario
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Market Intelligence
Belgian DC Market Snapshot — 2025/2026
Current capacity, revenue, and growth projections
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Total IT Load (2025)
Current operational capacity
207 MW across 35 facilities • 223 MW under development • over 260 MW by end-2026
💰
Colocation Revenue
Market growth projection
$220M (2024) → $388M (2030) • CAGR 9.9% • 34–35 existing sites
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Brussels Dominance
Geographic concentration
65 MW upcoming capacity • Concentrated in Brussels • Secondary: Antwerp, Ghent
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Google's New €5B Program
AI/DC investment expansion
Oct 2025 announcement • €5B for 2026–2027 • Saint-Ghislain + Farciennes • Total over €10B+ investment
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Microsoft IDC Impact
Economic projections
Azure Belgium Central • €59B new revenues (4 years) • ~85,000 jobs created
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Kevlinx BRU01
Carrier-neutral facility
Ready-for-service Q4 2025 • 32 MW+, 25,400 m² • 60–150 kW/rack capacity
Belgian Data Center Capacity — Ownership by Origin (by MW)
US Hyperscalers 55%
US Colo 33%
EU 7%
BE 5%
US Hyperscalers (Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon) US Colocation (Digital Realty, Equinix, EdgeConnex) EU-origin (OVH) Belgian-owned (LCL, DCU, Kevlinx)
Energy Demand Forecast (Belgium)
TWh/year — BCG scenarios to 2035
Today3 TWh
2035 Low7 TWh
2035 High15.5 TWh
National grid %10%+
High scenario (BCG 2025): Data centers could consume 15.5 TWh by 2035 — over 10% of Belgium's entire national electricity grid. Elia has already received connection requests totalling 10× available capacity.
The 8 TWh warning line marks the original grid development plan ceiling. Reserved 2034 capacity already exceeds double this figure, meaning major grid upgrades — paid by all households — are now unavoidable.
Low scenario assumes EU regulatory caps on data center power density take effect. Still a 2.3× increase from today, requiring significant renewable energy expansion.
Belgian Electricity Price
€/kWh household, 2020–2025
BE Peak (Dec 23)€0.44
EU Avg 2025€0.29
BE Premium+52%
Belgium pays the 3rd-highest household electricity price in the EU. The gap vs EU average has widened every year since 2020 — driven by energy taxes, grid tariffs, and capacity surcharges that fund data center connections.
The cross-subsidy in numbers: data centers pay ~€0.14/kWh (industrial rate). Households pay €0.31–0.34/kWh — a 2.4× markup. The extra grid infrastructure cost of new DC connections is distributed across all household bills via Fluvius tariffs.
Distribution by City
Number of data center facilities
Total facilities48
Brussels share38%
Under dev.+5
Brussels
Hyperscale hub
18Antwerp
Port logistics
6Ghent
Growing
5Liège
3
Hasselt
3
Namur
2
Bruges
2
Mons/SG
Google campus
1Others
8
Brussels concentration risk: 18 of 48 facilities — 38% of all Belgian data centers — are within the Brussels Capital Region. This creates single-point-of-failure risk for Belgium's digital infrastructure and concentrates grid pressure on one urban area.
Mons / Saint-Ghislain: Google's hyperscale campus here is the largest single facility in Belgium, consuming more power than all other Mons facilities combined.
Brussels Water Price Rise
Cumulative % increase vs 2021 baseline
2021 baseline€3.80/m³
2026 price€5.21/m³
Total rise+37%
HH impact/yr+€103
4 consecutive hikes 2022–2026 have raised Brussels water prices by 37% cumulatively. ULB ECARES economists classify the 2023 +14.5% spike as "unjustified by infrastructure costs alone" — partly attributable to recovering costs from data center and industrial users.
The 2026 +12.5% increase was officially justified by "unpaid bill recovery" — meaning ordinary households are subsidising water losses from large industrial consumers including data centers using canal water for cooling.
📡 Data Sources & Live Feeds Powering This Dashboard
Grid & Energy
Elia Open Data (opendata.elia.be) — day-ahead generation, CO₂ intensity, balancing volumes. CREG publications. electricityMap API (carbon intensity). ENTSO-E Transparency Platform.
Gas & Storage
AGSI+ API (agsi.gie.eu) — Belgian gas storage levels. ENTSOG transparency. Fluxys Belgium storage/flow data.
Economics
ECB Data API (exchange rates, interest rates). Eurostat (household electricity prices, renewables share). NBB Statistics Dashboard. Statbel OpenData API (demographics, CPI).