IREN has secured grid-connected power and a civil works license for a planned 300MW AI data center campus in Badajoz, Spain, with initial operations targeted for 2028. The company plans to sell managed AI cloud services from the site through its European arm, though the details buyers care about most are still missing.
The announcement covers power and permission, which is not the same as a working computing service. IREN has not said how much capacity customers can rent at opening, which accelerators will be installed or whether anyone has committed to the first phase. The 300MW figure describes the campus, not the rentable capacity.
What sets the plan apart is that IREN intends to build, run and manage the platform itself. Following its Mirantis acquisition, it has k0rdent AI software for provisioning and managing infrastructure, with workload isolation and controls aimed at security and residency. One supplier could mean fewer parties to chase when something breaks. It also leaves hardware maintenance, scheduling and support squarely with IREN.
Sovereignty is the pitch, and the least defined part. IREN Europe has a board chaired by Ángel Corcóstegui, the former Banco Santander chief executive, with Roberto Purcaro as executive director. The company entered the region in June by buying Spanish developer Nostrum Group and its team of more than 60 people. Local leadership may show who runs the infrastructure. It does not settle data residency, administrative access, encryption key control or exposure to legal demands, and a bank, a research body and a public agency could each set different terms for the same workload.
Cooling is another open item. The design uses closed loop liquid cooling that IREN says needs minimal water, and IREN built it to work with the NVIDIA DSX AI Factory Platform. Those are design choices, not measurements. IREN has not published any water or energy efficiency figures, and it does not explain how it will reject heat in hot weather.
Budget, financing, accelerator counts and pricing are also absent. IREN calls Badajoz its first European project within more than 5GW of grid-connected power, a figure that says little about installed computing capacity. Until a phased schedule and service terms appear, buyers are looking at a plan with a date attached.
