Data centers in Central Denmark Region: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

The Central Denmark Region's best-known data center is Apple's at Foulum, in an industrial park about 4.5 kilometres outside Viborg. It was announced at a press conference in Viborg in February 2015 by the then mayor, Torsten Nielsen, and a government minister, and from the start it was sold locally on its waste heat, which was said to be enough to warm not only Viborg but much of central Jutland. Apple's own 2025 environmental report, as cited by Computer Weekly, put the operating load at only about 7 megawatts.

The heat took a decade to arrive. Danish taxes and a price cap on industrial waste heat kept district heating companies from buying it, and the Danish parliament agreed to scrap the cap in January 2025. The Viborg district heating company, Viborg Varme, which supplies about 20,000 homes, proposed spending 266 million kroner on an energy hub and a 4.5-kilometre transmission line from Foulum, also taking heat from Energinet's transformer station next to the data center. TV Midtvest reported the heat was expected to cover at least half of Viborg's demand at first, and the utility's chairman, Kristian Brøns Nielsen, said it would cut an ordinary house's bill by 3,000 to 4,000 kroner a year. Chief executive Morten Abildgaard told Computer Weekly in May 2025 that at full build-out the site "will produce far more heat than we could ever use", but the utility wants several heat sources rather than depending on one.

What happens next in the region depends on national grid politics. In March 2026 the state grid operator Energinet paused new connection agreements after requests reached about 60 gigawatts against a national peak load of about 7 GW; data centers account for roughly 14 GW of that queue, Energinet told CNBC. After the election, climate and energy minister Samira Nawa blamed foreign data centers owned by "American tech giants", and in July 2026 an emergency bill went to public consultation that would give data centers lowest priority for scarce grid capacity unless they serve functions such as health, defence or emergency services. Computer Weekly reported the plan had the backing of parties holding 80 per cent of parliament. Henrik Hansen of the Danish Data Center Industry association told CNBC the queue had become a "fantasy" and needed cleaning up. The Danish Energy Agency had already cut its forecast in December, Computer Weekly reported, assuming two-thirds of queued projects would never be built, and an industry association analysis put installed data center capacity at 1.2 GW in 2030 despite 15 to 20 GW in the queue.

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.