Nasdaq-listed AI cloud provider IREN has secured a civil works licence and grid-connected power for a planned 300MW data centre campus in Badajoz, in Spain’s Extremadura region. The company, which announced the project at Nvidia’s GTC Berlin conference on 21 October, is targeting initial operations in 2028.
What IREN announced
The Badajoz campus will be designed for Nvidia’s DSX AI Factory platform and use closed-loop liquid cooling, which IREN says requires minimal water. From the site, the company plans to offer managed AI cloud services to European customers that want more control over where their workloads run and how their data is handled.
Software will be a central part of that pitch. IREN says it will use k0rdent AI, obtained through its acquisition of Mirantis, to provision and manage infrastructure with workload isolation, integrated with Nvidia’s infrastructure and Run:ai tools. Co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts said that for customers, sovereign AI “starts with two questions: where their data sits and who’s running the infrastructure”.
Key facts
- Capacity: approximately 300MW planned.
- Permits and power: civil works licence granted and grid-connected power secured.
- Timing: initial operations targeted for 2028.
- Portfolio: part of more than 5GW of grid-connected power IREN holds across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
IREN did not disclose the investment value, the number of GPUs or a phasing plan.
Context: IREN’s European entry
IREN entered Europe in June 2026 by acquiring Nostrum Group, a Spanish data centre developer whose team of more than 60 people is led by Gabriel Nebreda, now chief executive of IREN Spain. The company has created IREN Europe as a holding company for its European operations, chaired by Ángel Corcóstegui, with Roberto Purcaro as executive director for Europe. IREN says it will develop and operate its European sites directly, as it does elsewhere.
Why it matters for modular and edge in Europe
Badajoz is a large campus, not a modular or edge site. But the announcement highlights the factor that now shapes almost every European project, large or small: secured grid power. Southern and western Spain, with abundant solar generation and comparatively available land, is emerging as an alternative to congested hubs such as Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin.
The link to the DSX AI Factory platform is also relevant to the modular market. Nvidia’s reference designs, including the containerised DSX POD launched at the same event, are intended to standardise how high-density capacity is assembled. Operators that build to them may increasingly rely on prefabricated power, cooling and compute blocks, even on campuses of this scale. Whether Badajoz follows that route has not been disclosed.
Leave a Reply