Data centre specialist Alto Infrastructure, formerly known as Sierra DC, has begun construction of SP01, its first state-of-the-art AI data centre, at the Citai Technology Park (Industrial, Technological and Innovation City) in Escúzar (Granada). Development in this first phase will cover the first 10 megawatts of a campus that is expected to reach 70 megawatts of IT capacity.

The Nordic company’s planned investment for the entire campus will be around €700 million, the amount required to develop the facility. Alto estimates that the total potential investment, including infrastructure and technology equipment such as servers, graphics processing units (GPUs) and advanced computing platforms deployed by customers, will exceed €3 billion. To complete the first phase, it already has the backing of private investors and is in talks with institutional investors and financial institutions.

One of the largest in Spain
The first phase will come on stream in summer 2027, with a power capacity of 15 megawatts, equivalent to 10 megawatts of IT capacity, and reaching 25 megawatts of IT capacity before the end of the year. Completion of the project is scheduled for late 2029, when it will reach around 70 megawatts of IT capacity and 100 megawatts of total power, something which it has already secured, and making it one of Spain’s largest data centres.

Growing demand has driven the initiative to design the Granada centre specifically for artificial intelligence, high-performance computing (HPC) and advanced cloud services. Traditional air-cooling systems will be replaced by direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, which manage the high thermal loads associated with the most advanced processors more efficiently. The centre will also run on 100% renewable energy and has been designed to reduce the water consumption associated with cooling to virtually zero.

Extraordinary conditions
Alto Infrastructure CEO Gísli Kr. explains, “Europe needs new computing capacity to keep pace with the growth of AI, and Spain offers extraordinary conditions to attract this type of investment. We want to help the country play a fundamental role in this new phase of technological transformation and to make Alto Infrastructure the leading AI data centre platform in southern Europe.”

Alto Infrastructure sees a significant opportunity in southern Europe’s digital infrastructure. In fact, the Granada facility is the first step in the high-capacity AI data centre platform it plans to develop in Spain, and it is already in talks to develop new facilities in other locations. The team is made up of professionals from the Nordic data centre sector and a local team with extensive knowledge of the Spanish market that will bring to Spain its expertise in the design, construction and operation of more than 50 data centres across Europe.

^{Photo: Alto Infrastructure}