Where next for the Mediterranean

1. Power is reshaping data centre location decisions
   Strong demand is no longer the only consideration. Grid capacity, connection timelines, land and electricity economics are becoming critical factors in determining where new data centre capacity can be delivered. Large AI campuses can require hundreds of megawatts, compared with typical cloud data centre loads of around 20–30MW previously.
2. AI makes compute more geographically flexible
   Not every AI workload needs to be located close to the end user. Large-model training, fine-tuning, synthetic-data generation and batch inference are relatively latency-tolerant, allowing these workloads to move toward locations offering scalable power, connectivity and attractive economics.
3. A new Mediterranean compute ecosystem could emerge
   The report identifies three complementary layers: established hubs such as Madrid, Milan, Marseille and Athens; emerging regional hubs including Croatia and Crete; and frontier markets including Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Together, these locations could form a more distributed Mediterranean infrastructure ecosystem.
4. Northern Egypt presents a distinct opportunity
   Northern Egypt combines scale, geography and extensive international connectivity. Rather than relying solely on domestic demand, its potential lies in supporting selected European, African and Middle Eastern workloads for which power availability, scale and economics matter more than ultra-low latency. Project Atlas, near Alexandria, illustrates how this proposition could work in practice.

The next phase of data centre growth may be defined less by where demand sits and more by where power, land and connectivity can be brought together at scale. As AI changes infrastructure requirements, the Mediterranean has the potential to become a more distributed compute market, complementing rather than replacing Europe’s established data centre hubs.