Europe's data center landscape has been defined by a concentration on five key markets known as FLAP-D: Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and more recently Dublin. They account for over 70% of the continent's data center capacity, but these hubs are hitting hard infrastructure limits.

Connecting a new data center to the power grid can take up to 10 years in major hubs. With Europe's data center capacity set to triple in the next 5-7 years under new European Union directives, FLAP-D alone can’t absorb this growth.

Enter Central and Eastern Europe, which has numerous rapidly maturing data center hubs with distinct strategic advantages around renewable energy, climate, land, and government support. Take a look at four projects across Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania that illustrate this momentum, each demonstrating a different pathway to a country’s data center market maturity.