European AI data center signings quadruple to record 420 megawatts

AI-focused data center signings across Europe more than quadrupled in the first half of 2026, to a record 420 megawatts. CBRE's research, reported by IREI, put the year-earlier total at 89 megawatts.

The new tenants are neoclouds, the emerging AI infrastructure providers that made investors nervous two years ago. They are taking capacity at scale. Two-thirds of the contracted volume will be delivered in the Nordics, where renewable power is cheap and plentiful, and CBRE says that capacity is for the neoclouds themselves. Power availability, not proximity to users, is driving site selection.

CBRE sees the signings as a change in the investment climate. Operators are meeting their funding criteria with neocloud tenants, using rental deposits and letters of credit on some deals to hold down risk. 'Neoclouds have emerged as viable occupiers who are taking capacity at scale in markets typically where lower-cost power is the norm,' said Andrew Jay, head of data center solutions, Europe at CBRE.

The deposit-and-LOC structure points to operators underwriting the AI demand itself, not just the real estate. They are willing to sign at record scale, but with protections if workloads fail to appear. Two years ago the same capital sources treated neoclouds with caution; now the signed capacity gives operators a contracted revenue base for new development.

For investors, the European record sits alongside a U.S. buildout that Atrium's tracking puts at $1.3 trillion in development debt, and data centers are beginning to surface in single-borrower CMBS. The signings offer a second gauge of whether AI compute demand can carry the capital that operational real estate requires — and, in the Nordics, a test of whether renewable power can support that demand. The next half-year will show whether this pace is catch-up or sustained.