NTT shared plans to build and operate a new data center campus in Paris, France. The 35.5 acre campus, in addition to recently announced data centers in Virginia and India, will help NTT meet the growing demand for high-performance computing aligned with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

“Paris is a significant addition to our global offering and an important area in our expansion efforts,” NTT Data Center CEO Doug Adams said.

Logistics Capital Partners (LCP) acquired the brownfield site in 2019 and managed the demolition, decontamination and power connections for data center usage — up to 84 MW. LCP will continue to strategically support the development of this campus, according to NTT.

The Paris data center campus is part of NTT’s commitment to invest $10 billion in data center growth between 2023 and 2027 — and its goal to source 100% renewable energy for its operations by 2030.

The technology industry currently represents 7% of global energy consumption and 2%–4% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually. Specifically, cloud hyperscalers and managed cloud service providers account for “a considerable portion” of the industry’s overall impact, according to GlobalData.

Cloud services will continue to play an integral role for business and governments, and they will continue to demand more energy consumption. “The acceleration of adoption of AI is only going to drive further rapid growth in demand,” said Robert Pritchard, GlobalData principal analyst for enterprise technology and services.

Most data center expansion is similarly tied to renewable energy ambitions, primarily through power purchase agreements (PPAs) — investments in wind, solar or other renewable energy projects that neutralize carbon emissions associated with fossil fuel energy use.

As more renewable energy is funded, plugged into the grid and utilized, demand for fossil energy should lessen. PPAs effectively displace brown, or fossil-based, electrons in the grid. As opposed to a large solar panel installation on the roof of a data center, for example, it isn’t physically possible to trace a green electron produced by a wind farm to determine what and where exactly it ends up.

PPAs are “more about driving additional green power onto the grid, which benefits not just us, because our data centers are connected, but also the others that have access to and utilize that particular grid,” Equinix VP of Sustainability Christopher Wellise told SDxCentral.

However, the significant consumption and scale at which data centers buy energy means both renewable and traditional fossil fuel energy supplies are becoming challenged at a local level, “and the authorities have noticed,” Pritchard said.

Future planning for data centers will likely be constrained by these concerns. “Already seen as great innovators, the data center world is going to have to come up with some new answers,” he said.