The newest data center proposal in Flanders is in Lanaken, Limburg. The Dutch company Switch Datacenters is negotiating to build on the former Sappi paper mill site, an investment its spokesperson, Cara Mascini, said could reach €1 billion for the building alone, with 150 to 250 jobs, VRT NWS reported on September 18, 2026. Switch still has to sign with the site's owner and then obtain building permits; it hopes to finish construction five years after signing.
Mayor Marino Keulen welcomed the plan after the closures of the Celanese and Sappi plants. "People should not fear that their own electricity supply will be at risk," he said, adding that Switch plans to reuse its cooling water and he expects no major problems because the site is already industrial. Mascini said the old mill can connect straight to the high-voltage grid rather than the local distribution grid, which she called fairly saturated in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Most of Flanders' existing data centers sit around Brussels, where the Flemish grid operator Fluvius said in 2024 that it sometimes could no longer connect new projects in Flemish Brabant. Digital Realty owns three data centers in Zaventem. De Tijd reported in 2024 that Microsoft was setting up three cloud data centers around Brussels (the trade site Computable named Zaventem, Ternat and Aalst) and that EdgeConnex was building its first Belgian site in Ternat. Elia, the national grid operator, expects data center power use across Belgium to more than double by 2034.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
Flanders2
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Realty Brussels (Zaventem) | Digital Realty | Not reported | Source off site ↗ | |
| Equinix Brussels Vilvoorde Campus (BR1) | Equinix | Not reported | Not reported | Source off site ↗ |
Where this comes from
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.