Bain launches datacenter biz for Euros worried about climate change and Trump

Investment biz Bain Capital is getting further into the datacenter sector with the launch of an operation serving hyperscalers in Europe, potentially positioning itself to benefit from customer unease over US hyperscalers.

Given the imaginative name of hscale, the company appears to have been founded on Bain's acquisition of an 80 percent stake in AQ Compute, the datacenter subsidiary of Aquila Group, in October last year.

At the time, the pair boasted of a planned multibillion-euro investment to accelerate AQ Compute's strategy to develop and operate sustainable bit barns for hyperscaler and AI customers across Europe.

The new operator's website states that it builds data facilities in strategically chosen locations across EMEA, listing Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, and Oslo as its current sites.

The company claims to have 100 MW of capacity currently under construction and a 1 GW-plus pipeline in markets that also take in London, Frankfurt, and Zaragoza.

With Aquila still keeping a stake in the biz, hscale intends to use its subsidiary, Aquila Clean Energy, to power these datacenters with renewable energy "whenever possible," and to minimize their carbon footprint both during construction and operations. A recent study projected that the AI boom will cause datacenters to emit 3x as much climate-warming carbon dioxide as they would've had the technology never been discovered.

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Compute sovereignty issues are also becoming a growing concern in Europe since the start of the Trump administration, whose foreign policy highlights thus far include threatening to annex Greenland and dressing down the president of Ukraine in an Oval Office appearance. Google recently expanding its sovereign cloud services in response to worries about data stored on platforms controlled by American firms.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Bain was looking to sell off some datacenter interests it has in China, in a deal that could value that business at over $4 billion, according to Reuters. Chindata Group Holdings was said to be facing slower hyperscaler demand and higher competition in China, which may indicate a strategic shift toward regions with higher growth potential. ®