Visions for data centers Amsterdam Metropolitan Area

With the development of a public-private study, we’ve worked toward a shared vision on the impact of data centers on the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

The Amsterdam region is among the top three data center hubs in Europe, after London and Frankfurt. Almost all things online go through a data center. A quarter of our gross national product depends on data centers. The presence of data centers is an important factor for foreign companies looking to move here, as is Schiphol Airport, for example. European headquarters – such as that of Netflix – are locating in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area for this reason. The data center market is developing rapidly and with tremendous momentum. With this initiative, the Amsterdam Economic Board set out to identify trends, opportunities and uncertainties so that the region can better anticipate changes.

Results of the visions

The Amsterdam Economic Board, together with partners, prepared future scenarios for developments in the data center industry in 2018. To this end, we organised meetings to reflect on the impact of data centers on the region from different perspectives.

These activities have led to increased awareness among regional partners. That put data centers on the agenda within the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. The municipalities of Amsterdam and Haarlemmermeer even declared a temporary construction freeze on data centers in 2019. Data centers also appeared on the national agenda. The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations published a strategic study on data center growth in 2019.

The realisation that organisations and residents consume a lot of energy with their data usage, putting stress on the energy grid, led to the start of our LEAP initiative.

More information

• March 2022 – Haarlemmermeer welcomes only energy-efficient data centers
• December 2021 – Europe’s largest data center hubs struggle with footprint (article in Dutch)
• November 2019 – The data economy is growing tremendously. Do we want that? (article in Dutch)
• March 2019 – Roadmap towards 2030 for the growth of data centers in the Netherlands (pdf in Dutch)
• May 2018 – Research report future scenarios for data centers in Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (pdf in Dutch)

Role of the Amsterdam Economic Board

Initiate, connect, drive, execute