The new label is optional for smaller data centers, “but later we are also going to introduce minimum performance standards which, of course, will put more pressure on those who may not voluntarily wish to be as sustainable as we want them to,” he added.
While Australia and Singapore already have schemes rating the energy efficiency of data centers, the Commission’s new label would be the most comprehensive worldwide — asking tech companies to be transparent not only about their power use but also their impact on the local and global environment via information on how much water they consume, how clean their electricity is, whether they reuse the heat they generate and more.
The EU executive’s performance standards, which the Commission wants to present in spring 2027, are expected to tighten the screws by setting mandatory sustainability thresholds for newly built or retrofitted data centers.
Those two initiatives are an attempt at ensuring the European Union can compete in the artificial intelligence race without sacrificing its commitment to climate neutrality in 2050, Jørgensen said.
“We need to deal with this in a way that data centers in the future are not something that will hurt our energy systems, and thereby our competitiveness and capabilities of decarbonizing and making sure we have security of supply for our citizens,” he said.
“If we do not make sure that these big power consumers are indeed in line with our overall objectives… then they will risk undermining our ability to live up to our own targets,” Jørgensen warned. Data centers are already hoovering up 2.5% of the bloc’s electricity use, a share expected to double in the coming years, he noted. “We’re looking at a huge change.”