Government confirms new data centres in Portugal

The Portuguese government has confirmed its intention to set up 44 data centre projects all over the country, the total processing capacity of which is expected to exceed 2.6 gigawatts (GW).

By Íris Marçal, in News, Politics · 13 Oct 2026, 15:33 · 4 Comments

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At the same time, the government has refused to make public the precise locations of the majority of these facilities or the names of the companies and organisations making the investments, since the projects are intended to satisfy the increasing demand caused by the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing services.

Investment and job creation

As the government has told the newspaper Público, out of the 44 developments four are considered to be large-scale projects, most of the expected capacity being located in the Lisbon area. Even though the sector has great economic potential—with initial investments estimated at about €8 billion and the generation of 3,300 direct jobs for each installed gigawatt—there are still questions regarding the real amount of electrical capacity that has already been secured and the costs involved in upgrading the distribution grid. In order to counteract speculative reservations of power, the government has set up a system of progressive financial guarantees.

National Data Centre Plan

The strategy is part of the National Data Centre Plan, which was approved in April and includes 15 measures to be carried out by 2027, and is intended to make use of Portugal's strategic geographical position as well as its links through international submarine cables, for example the Nuvem cable recently completed by Google.

Sines is particularly important as a centre for technological development and hosts the 1.2 GW Start Campus project. Moreover, the government has increased its support for the tech ecosystem by announcing its involvement in the European AI Gigafactories project; this involves an initial public investment of up to €200 million with the aim of taking advantage of a national contribution amounting to €4 billion in private capital.

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I am glad that this article repeats the information and concerns which I gave in my essay "Portugal´s IA and IT Industries: a Postscript" which TPN published last week. But I am alarmed by the assertion that the government has taken the anti-democratic decision to disclose neither most of the locations nor the names of the actors involved in promoting schemes of high risk to the community. The report speaks of Publico being the source. However, I can find no reference to this extraordinary statement in today´s edition or in SOl, Expresso on-line. Could you please confirm that this is not a case of planted misinformation. Roberto Cavaleiro

By Cavaleiro R. from Other on 13 Oct 2026, 17:57

This is an absolutely terrible idea Portugal. Whatever they are paying you ot isn't worth it. Do the research folks, there is a reason communities around the world don't want these. There are far better technology spaces that need Portugal minus the immense damage.

By Chris from Lisbon on 14 Oct 2026, 11:45

I share the concerns Robert Cavaleiro mentions on the lack of democratic insight when not disclosing more details about the data centre plans.
And more, there is a big problem when a country become just a landlord to tech giants (US) who would reap the benefits of cheap electric power and good locations. This is a common problem around EU when politicians are lured by the number of jobs they believe will be created etc.

The countries should have strict demands on these companies to pay for their own excessive needs of power, water and infrastructure. But instead politicians are pumping in subsidies and giving away land and resources to these companies and hoping that the number of assumed jobs created are worth the cost. With AI it will probably be less jobs created when AI Agents are doing the job.

My other concern is how all this will affect peoples electric bills. Will there be higher prices for normal users or will the government demand that the tech giants pay for their excessive needs of power and infrastructure.

As a side note; When did Gigawatt become the standard for showing computer processing capacity. It has always been FLOPS (floating-point operations per second). Given that massive AI and supercomputer clusters require much power measured in gigawatts (GW) but it does not say anything about how fast the computer is.

My car has a 50L fuel tank. What does it say about the engine power or how fast the car is?

Another reference in the article, "the generation of 3,300 direct jobs for each installed gigawatt". It's as bad as using football fields or olympic swimming pools as a reference of an objects size.

By Robert Linden from Lisbon on 14 Oct 2026, 12:26

This is one of the worst ideas the government has ever had! Don't they realise the amount of electric and water consumption data centres require? And, even in the USA, there is a backlash mounting against AI and Data Centres because local people are suffering electric and water shortages as a result of data centre building and operation. Indeed even the companies who create and develop AI now see the profound dangers of the monster they have made !!

By John Pead from Lisbon on 15 Oct 2026, 08:22