By Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Nebius, the Amsterdam-based AI cloud services firm, said on Thursday it is planning to build a new 240-megawatt data centre in Béthune, near Lille in France, that will be one of Europe’s largest when it is finished. The build-out comes as a wave of European companies – particularly in manufacturing, services and logistics – begin deploying AI tools. 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 end of 2026, Nebius Chief Communications Officer Tom Blackwell said. Separately, Nebius reported a wider fourth-quarter loss despite a leap in revenue as it spends heavily on expanding capacity to meet booming AI demand. 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 infrastructure to U.S. hyperscalers, including a $17 billion deal with Microsoft and a $3 billion deal with Meta. 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. Blackwell said that while the U.S. remains its biggest market, it made "absolute sense" for Nebius to have a footprint in Europe as an increasing number of firms on the continent use AI. Nebius did not disclose the cost of the Béthune project. Real estate services firm CBRE estimates development and construction costs for an AI data centre at $10-$14 million per megawatt, implying $2.4-$3.6 billion for a 240-megawatt facility. Construction costs will be borne by French firm Azur, while Nebius will purchase the crucial chips made by Nvidia shortly before they go into use. Nebius’s other main European sites include its largest current 75-megawatt facility in Finland as well as smaller co-location deployments in London, Paris and Iceland. (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Kirsten Donovan)
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